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Special City Council Meetrng <br />August 20, 2001 <br />Page 2 <br />current tax rate. <br />City Manager Malone advised that the budget was prepared with most of the <br />requests, but not all of the requests that the department heads made, other than <br />the human resource requests. The budget was almost two million dollars in the <br />red as compared to the revenue. He said he sent the requests back to the <br />department heads asking them to make additional cuts and resubmit their <br />budgets. Many of the items that our personnel think are necessary and <br />desirable to have excellent service for the citizens have been left out of this <br />document. He said that took place before he had any resources dedicated to <br />any cost of living increase for the employees. The City Manager advised that <br />having made those cuts and prepared a budget, he placed in the budget a 2.7% <br />cost of living increase based on the last twelve month's CPL City Manager <br />Malone said there were many capital items deleted, particularly from the larger <br />departments that had proposed capital expenditures that were significant. He <br />stated that in many of the smaller departments, it would be difficult to make <br />cuts, but each department yielded up some of their requests to prepare the <br />document presented. <br />City Manager Malone told the Council that, going into the workshop, this is a <br />proposed budget. It is proposed on the basis of no tax increase and no utility <br />rate increase. The Finance Director has informed him that the Water and <br />Sewer Fund is not generating the revenues that were projected in the last rate <br />study, so there is a need for a water and sewer rate increase, in order to operate <br />the system in the manner in which they would want to operate. <br />City Manager Malone said it is hoped that each department head will have the <br />opportunity to speak regarding the items that were removed from their <br />proposed budget. He felt that they will be able to prioritize those items that <br />they find most desirable. There were some positions eliminated through <br />attrition, particularly in the Police Department where there are four positions <br />that are currently vacant. There were a number of positions that were added in <br />the Police budget over the past years that were funded through grants. He said <br />