City Manager Eric Williams presented another revised budget to the City Council’s Finance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee on Wednesday night.
The latest plan would raise the monthly sanitation fee by $2 to $27 and the property tax rate by 3 cents per $100 to 67 cents and would force the city to find $136,710.00 in savings.
Council member Elissa Yount proposed that financial package at a FAIR meeting 24 hours earlier. Between the meetings, the plan gained support from council members Lonnie Davis, Bernard Alston and John Wester, but Yount wavered.
In Wednesday’s proposal to the FAIR Committee, Williams found savings by freezing jobs such as finance director, human resources manager, a clerical position and an entry-level firefighter for various lengths of time and delaying a city pay raise by six months. The raise would average 3 percent but would be distributed based on merit.
Council members expressed concerns about the logistics of some of the freezes, but Williams expressed confidence that he could make tenable arrangements.
Mayor Clem Seifert, who does not have a vote on the budget unless the eight-member council splits evenly when it takes up the matter Monday night, was not at Wednesday’s meeting but did issue a strong statement against any tax increase in a letter sent by e-mail to FAIR members.
On Tuesday night Seifert indicated that if called on to break a tie, he would vote in favor of the $2 increase in sanitation fees and the 3-cent rise in the property tax rate. The proposed budget also would raise water rates by 10 percent and sewer rates by 15 percent.
In his e-mail message, Seifert wrote: “After thoughtful consideration and some additional review of budget documents, especially Code Compliance, I need to let you know that I will not vote in support of this budget if there is any ad valorem tax increase. So if you want it passed Monday night, don’t let there be a tie. There are many reasons why I feel this way. We have had many citizens work hard to help move this city forward as it relates to our appearance and our removal of dilapidated and abandoned houses. The city council has indicated their concern for this as well. This budget funds that department less than last year. That is unacceptable to me. … Because I don’t believe the city has presented a budget that is best for us at this time, I will not endorse a tax increase.”
Armed with similar information from that morning’s Clean Up Henderson Committee meeting, Yount question the proposed allocation for the Code Compliance Department.
“We need to put our money where our mouth is,” she said. “We need to fund it or get rid of it.”
The city raised its monthly sanitation fee by $5 last July, with roughly $1.67 of that, or $20 per year per household, earmarked for the Code Compliance Department. With roughly 5,300 sanitation customers in the city, that fee should produce $106,000 or so per year.
Yount labeled abandoned structures as one of the priorities of the city. She argued that the public trust in the city government will be threatened if Henderson does not follow through by adequately funding the department and enforcing civil penalties for code violations.
Yount pointed out that along with the Recreation and Planning departments, Code Compliance is the only department Williams budgeted to receive less funding in 2005-06 than this fiscal year. She said she regretted proposing her tax and fee schedule Tuesday without knowing that the Code Compliance Department had been cut by so much.
Fire Chief Danny Wilkerson echoed Yount’s sentiments. The Fire Department has recently been given greater powers under a summary abatement ordinance to rapidly condemn houses that pose an eminent threat to public safety. Wilkerson questioned how effective that effort will be if the Code Compliance Department does not receive enough money to remove the condemned structures.
Yount proposed using anticipated but unbudgeted Community Development Block Grant administration funds for the Code Compliance Department. Those funds would not affect the tax rate or sanitation fee.
Alston, the FAIR chairman, said the plan is good in theory, but he objected to committing those funds in such a specific way at this time.
The session ended with two main proposals.
Alston, Davis and Wester support Williams’ plan for a $27 sanitation fee and 67-cent property tax rate. Mary Emma Evans and Mike Rainey seemed to support raising the sanitation fee to $30 and keeping the tax rate at the current 64 cents per $100 valuation, though Evans was entertaining ideas of mixing taxes with rate increases to decrease the impact of rate changes on citizens with fixed incomes.
Harriette Butler and Ranger Wilkerson were not at the meeting.
Yount remained uncertain because of the Code Compliance Department being “shortchanged.”
The new fiscal year starts a week from Friday. The City Council is due to adopt the budget Monday.
Written by Brad Breece