MARQUETTE — The Marquette City Commission approved the 2024 fiscal year budget during Monday’s meeting.

In the 2024 budget, the city will increase both its income and expenditures as compared to its 2023 budget, with much of the additional money coming in from the city’s increased millage rate, which was approved in June 2022.

Marquette City Manager Karen Kovacs said that the entirety of the 2024 fiscal year budget totals $97 million dollars.

“That is no number to just blink at. That is a very big number,” Kovacs said.

The main focus of the 2024 budget is the city’s general fund, which comes in at $25.8 million. The general fund is what the city uses to run its day-to-day operations and includes the budget for the fire department, the police department as well as general government operations.

Of the more than $25 million in the city general fund, roughly half of that total comes from the city’s taxable revenues, with $12.4 million flowing into the city’s coffers from Marquette property taxes. Other sources of the city’s income include $3.5 million from the state of Michigan’s revenue sharing and more than $2 million in grant funding.

The budget sees the city of Marquette continuing to operate at a loss, with the city’s spending outpacing the income by more than $600,000. While the city is currently operating in the red, city projections forecast a better financial position in the coming years, with projections of the city operating in the black by 2031.

“Yes, our expenditures are going to exceed our revenues this year again. We have built up enough fund balance or reserves to do so without impacting our services drastically,” Kovacs said.

The 2024 fiscal year budget goes into place Wednesday.