By Eloria Newell James, community@laurelleadercall.com
Members of the Laurel City Council have been revisiting the city’s budget issues over the past several weeks.
This week, the council conducted a budget and public safety meeting to discuss matters that would affect this year’s fiscal year budget.
Laurel’s Chief Administrative Officer Dennis Keveryn said the city’s finances are down.
“Sales taxes are down, courts is down and tourism is down,” Keveryn said. “The good news is that our expenses are down too.”
Council President Tony Wheat, who also served as the council’s budget chairman, said decisions made in this budget were designed for long-term. However, Wheat said, “there are some expenses we don’t control,” referring to utilities and fuel costs.
“We’re going to be looking for some money,” Wheat said. “It’s going to be some tough choices. I would rather make payroll and service our debt than to be doing something else with the city’s money.”
Other council members agreed.
“We are at the mercy of sales taxes and expenses,” Keveryn told the group. “We are looking at everything we possibly can to save money and cut costs.”
The city is currently operating under a budget that some members of the council, even down to the final vote on Sept. 15, did not support as presented for this fiscal year.
The city’s proposed budget contained no raises for city employees; the city judge’s position became full-time, some personnel cuts were made; water and sewer rates were increased; and fines from municipal court were anticipated to increase by $200,000.
The budget eliminated 16 city positions — three full time and 13 part-time jobs — and reduced three positions to part-time.
The original budget also did not fund the fire chief position fully and reduced the deputy council clerk, the housing development clerk and the planning/development clerk positions from full-time to a 24-hour week.
During the Nov. 17th meeting, the council amended the Laurel Fire Department budget to compensate the positions of fire chief and training officer.
Keveryn said the city was able to make these compensation requests due to changes made in the Laurel Police Department.
During the budget/public safety meeting, Keveryn said fire department personnel — based on Civil Service guidelines — is being considered for the training officer position.
Keveryn also announced this week that the city’s Public Works Department has frozen an equipment operator position in its street division.
Some council members also talked about looking at ways to better utilize some of the city’s already budgeted funds.
“We are going to come to you the first of the year with some recommendations,” Keveryn said. “We are keeping an eye on things.”
