RSS Feed
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
T'ville budget passed over Allen's objection Council member Charles Allen and Mayor Sheldon Day again locked horns over money when the city council considered its 2008 budget. "My concerns are the last minute board approval," Allen said during the council work session. "We meet here an hour before the meeting and have 15 minutes to discuss this as a board." "I've asked this last year and we still haven't done it, why don't we track our last five years of revenues compared to our spending, our balance gets lower and lower," Allen said. "This is the way it was last year, and one year later, I'm seeing the same things, we do all these projects, and now we have this civic center that's not going to bring in any revenue," Allen said. Day said he's tried to put together conservative budgets last year and this year. "Y'all got this budget over two weeks ago and we've asked the council for your input, and you've talked to me individually about your questions and concerns," Day said. "I'm not trying to ram this down your throat." "I agree that we can sit down and work together more on the budget, but when I don't get a lot of input from the council, I consider it a validation of what we're doing. We've had some projects slip up on us that had to be done this year," Day said. "We've done more projects in the last three years than most towns do in 10. I'm actually ready for things to slow down a little bit." Allen replied, "I'm not saying it's wrong." When contacted earlier in the day by The Thomasville Times, Allen said previous city administrations wouldn't spend any money on projects to better the city, but now maybe the pendulum had swung too far in the other direction, with the city committing itself to too many costly projects at once. "When you look at this over the past five years, it tells us how we're doing, and the fund balance is going down," Allen said. Allen said records he's received from the city show the city's fund balance to be dangerously low, while Day said the city keeps a rolling balance of about $1.5 million. While the number fluctuates from month to month, that is the average he said. Day said he would institute quarterly budget meetings with the council to better communicate where things were going during the year. The budget of $7.4 million was approved with Allen voting no. The budget includes a pay raise for all city employees from three percent to five percent. It also anticipates $400,000 in alcohol sales tax revenues. No tax increases are projected for the budget. In other business, the council approved alcohol sales licenses for the businesses previously approved by the license review committee. Allen voted no on the approval. The license applications will now be sent back to the state Alcohol Beverage Control Board for final approval, which could take up to three weeks, Day said. Merri Mart No. 5, Parr's Chevron, Rite Aid No. 7134, Smoke Shoppe II, Super Stop No. 85, and Wal-Mart were all approved. The council did not take action on proposed changes to the alcohol control ordinance, which would have included setting times barring the sale of alcohol from midnight to 6 a.m. and changing the requirements for liquor stores to keep other inventory. Day said the liquor store regulation was in conflict with state law. Allen voted no on a motion to suspend the normal rules and go ahead and approve the new ordinance. It will be considered at the next council meeting. The Walgreen's building permit was approved Monday night. The permit lists the value of the building at $2.1 million.
The council declined to participate in a state retirement system bonus for the city's retirees, saying it would cost the city three times what the retirees would receive.
|
for larger version       |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
