The Ames City Council amended and approved the 2004-05 city budget and 2004-09 Capital Improvements Plan Tuesday, leaving one public hearing before the documents are sent to the state for certification.

The council made 10 amendments to the city’s budget for the upcoming year. Several reallocated dollars from existing funds for new projects. A new sustainable neighborhood organization was allocated $25,000 from the Housing Assistance Fund. The organization will buy houses to assure they are bought by homeowners rather than turned into rental property.

The council reallocated $60,000 from the Downtown Facade Program to the Main Street Cultural District to hire a cultural district coordinator and to help with startup costs of turning downtown into a cultural district.

The council took $25,000 previously set aside for park development and pledged it to improving sports complexes.

Human Services, by the direction of its funding evaluation team, had its budget cut by $1,000. All of the Ames Partner City Program’s funding, $3,000, was cut at the direction of the program’s executives.

Councilman Steve Goodhue introduced a plan to eliminate public access television Channel 16, saving $52,505 and moving $8,000 to Channel 12. The council approved the measure.

It also approved fee increases for non-Ames residents participating in city parks and recreation services and several developmental fees. Combined, the increased fees would bring in roughly $25,000.

Goodhue suggested money saved by cutting Channel 16 and earned with the fee increases be used to offset the rise in property taxes for the upcoming year.

“Right now we have a 3.28 percent increase in taxes,” Goodhue said. “We want to go below 3 percent.”

Councilman Matthew Goodman opposed the idea.

To balance the budget, the city used $240,000 from the community improvement fund, which was created separately from a fund that offsets property taxes. The fund comes from local sales taxes paid by Ames residents.

Because the budget was balanced using sales tax in the community improvement fund, with money paid by everyone, Goodman said, extra money earned through amendments should return to that fund. Property taxes would, in effect, only give money back to those who pay property taxes, which in Ames is only half the population.

Goodman said he believed giving the money back to the community improvement fund would benefit more of the Ames community. “All I’m asking is that we follow through on the spirit of this issue,” Goodman said.

The public budget hearing will take place March 2.