The Columbus City Council will move forward with a public hearing on its Fiscal Year 2013 budget, a budget that will ask for more out-of-pocket money from the city’s residents.
During a budget hearing Wednesday at City Hall, the council voted 4-2 to increase garbage rates from $15 to $17 per month. The rate increase was a late effort to pare down a deficit of more than $400,000.
“If we increase garbage rates by $2, that would reduce the deficit by $220,000,” said Ward 3 Councilman Charlie Box, who made the motion on the rate hike. Ward 2 Councilman Joseph Mickens and Ward 6 Councilman Bill Gavin voted against the measure. Box’s motion will also allow the city to dip into its $2.5 million reserve fund and cover the remaining $232,000 deficit in the planned budget. The rate increase will take effect Oct. 1, according to Chief Financial Officer Mike Bernsen. The city’s twice-weekly garbage pickup is contracted through Golden Triangle Waste Management.
As the council continued to debate the merits of removing new personnel and equipment from the budget, Box said tough decisions would have to be made.
“It is our responsibility to serve the citizens, but part of our responsibility is to keep taxes low enough to keep people here,” Box said. “If we keep growing the government every year, we are eventually going to have to look at raising taxes. I get a lot more calls about taxes than I do garbage. We either need to raise taxes or make cuts. Garbage seems the fairest way to do this — it hits everyone.”
But Mayor Robert Smith said the raise in rates is a temporary fix.
“We’re going to have to raise taxes next year,” he said.
The garbage fee increase came after an almost two-hour session during which the council trimmed the budget department by department. After agreeing last week to approve the appropriations part of the budget at the same funding level as 2012, the council agreed to increase funding for the Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority and Lowndes County E911.
CLRA Executive Director Roger Short appeared before the council to ask for $617,013. That request was $52,000 more than what was originally budgeted. Short said the increase was a commitment from the city to help with soon-to-be opened Columbus Soccer Complex, located in the Burn’s Bottom area.
“Mr. Short had a meeting with myself and (District 1 Supervisor and Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President) Harry Sanders, (Lowndes County Administrator) Ralph Billingsley, (Columbus Chief Operations Officer) David Armstrong and Mike (Bernsen),” Smith said. “We made a gentleman’s agreement to fund this request because it is mainly for our soccer complex.”
Gavin questioned Short on where he thought the council would find the additional $52,000.
“I can’t tell you where to find it,” Short said. “But everyone knew this 15-month project was going to be completed. We didn’t expect this $5 million project to be completed and everyone just throw their hands in the air and not meet their commitments.”
Billingsley also called the council out on a commitment to the shared E911 services.
“We are supposed to be in a 50/50 partnership with E911,” Billingsley said. “Most of the calls we get are city calls and (the county) has been funding most of the excess calls. You’re sitting on a $90,000 budget for (E911) for this year. The council made the commitment to do this. I had to amend it in our budget. You have not funded this 50-50 in years. We need to get it back to this.”
The council agreed to increase the E911 appropriations by an additional $36,453.
After originally approving the hiring of three additional top-level personnel for the Columbus Police Department, the council threatened to eliminate the three positions from the budget. In the end, however, the council agreed to cut only one position, allowing Police Chief Selvain McQueen to hire an additional assistant chief and a CID commander.
McQueen, whose request for four new police cars was cut from the budget, urged the council to keep public safety a priority.
“Early in the year, the mayor and council said you would provide what I need to protect this city,” McQueen said. “I think without these three new hires, we are sitting on a time bomb. We don’t want to cut public safety and protection and jeopardize the citizens of Columbus. So, I’m asking you, what are you willing to cut?”
The two new hires were budgeted at $147,000.
The approved budget also includes $10,000 for lighting and sound upgrades for the Trotter Convention Center, $448,705 for a new fire truck, $200,000 for a boom truck for the Public Works Department as well as two zero-turn mowers at $15,000 each and a tandem dump truck budgeted at $130,000.
A public hearing will be held on the FY 2013 budget Thursday, Sept. 6 at 5:30 p.m. at the Municipal Complex. The council will have a special meeting on Sept. 13 at 5 p.m. at the Municipal Complex to approve the budget.
Jeff Clark was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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