From The Trussville Tribune staff reports
TRUSSVILLE — The Trussville City Council passed the fiscal year 2019 budget during a special called meeting on Friday, Sept. 27, 2019.
Mayor Buddy Choat proposed the budget, which includes a 2% cost-of-living raise for all city employees, longevity pay, based on years of service and health insurance premium increases. Choat said there is a lot going on in the city of Trussville and that made getting the budget ready a little more time-consuming this year.
“We had an audit going on during this time and it had to be done a little differently because of all the transitions we have been dealing with,” said Choat.
The city projects revenue of $35,551,600. That is about a 3% increase from FY-2018. As far as sales tax, Choat said the city could fall short in projections but he expects the state’s portion of sales tax to make up for any loss.
The city is absorbing the increase in insurance costs for employees, so there will not be a change in the amount employees pay, according to Choat.
The mayor said a lot of the requests he received from department heads were for vehicles. He said the city is now on a maintenance schedule with vehicles and is in need of replacing several that have close to 200,000 miles on them. The city will use credit from Bryant Bank to finance the vehicles so the large sum of money needed won’t be taken out of the budget.
Councilman Alan Taylor said it was evident that all department heads worked hard on their requests.
“A lot of thought and a lot of detail went into this,” said Taylor. “I know both the chiefs put a lot of thought and effort into this and I know all department heads did.”
The largest portion of the budget will go to public safety.
The Police Department is adding four motorcycles and vehicles. Police Chief Eric Rush said the additions are necessary as the city sees increased traffic.
Fire Chief Tim Shotts said he is thankful the current administration has worked so well with public safety departments.
“It’s very important that as the city grows the infrastructure grows,” said Shotts. “Especially for police, fire, public works and parks and recs. Because if you don’t, it’s very hard to catch up,”
Trussville Fire and Rescue will be replacing radios to comply with federal standards. According to Shotts, the new radios will also help with communication between fire and police.
“Police are on a different radio system than we are,” said Shotts. “So, this will get us on the same system so we don’t have to go through dispatch to communicate with police.”
The fire department will also make necessary upgrades to some vehicles.
The Parks and Recreations Department is getting $175,000 from the city, to match a grant that will go towards ball fields behind the library and some extra exercise equipment. The grant still has to be approved on the federal level.
Also in the budget, new carpet at the Trussville Civic Center. The carpet has already been installed.
Council President Jef Freeman said the budget proposal was done differently this year.
“I’m kind of used to a narrative going along with the budget,” said Freeman. “Without a narrative, it’s difficult to absorb the information. I feel like I didn’t have a road map. Like I was on a road trying to find a destination and I didn’t have a road map.”
Freeman said the new method made it “extremely difficult” to digest all the information in the budget proposal.
“I feel like I’m here looking at something for the first time, 30 minutes before I’m voting to approve it,” said Freeman.
However, Freeman said the mayor’s explanation of the budget during the council workshop Friday, helped him understand the proposed budget enough to approve it.
The budget, which was recommended by the Finance Committee, was passed unanimously by all attending council members. Councilman Zack Steele was unable to attend the meeting.
The budget will be re-evaluated six months into the year, according to Choat. At that time, some of the requests that were not granted in the budget will be re-evaluated. Choat said he would also like to have quarterly budget talks going forward.
