Italy City Council approves budget
On Thursday night, the Italy City Council met in a called meeting to approve the 2014-2015 budget. City administrator, Teri Murdock, explained the proposed budget reflected the future changes as a result of the recent vote to do away with mayor and council salaries.
Three proposals were presented for Public Works.
Scenario 1 was for 5 full time workers, water clerk, 2 part time workers and 1 part time admin worker. This would make the expenditures under the revenues by $12,033.
Scenario 2 was for 6 full time workers, water clerk, 1 part time worker and 1 part time admin worker. This would increase the expenditures over the revenues by $2,822.00. The amount of revenues would have to be increased to balance the proposed budget.
Scenario 3 was for 6 full time workers, water clerk, 2 part time workers and 1 part time admin worker. This would increase the expenditures by $16,609. The amount of revenues would have to be increased to balance the proposed budget.
The council opted for Scenario 2 and amended the revenues to reflect the change.
“All of our full time public works employees are salaried now”, Carrell explained. “Now we will have a team full time on roads.”
Steven Farmer voiced concern regarding budgeted expenses for attorney.
“We are over budget right now by $53,000 for our attorney,” Farmer said. “Our budget was $20,000 and we have spent over $73,000. We need to use our resources first like TML.”
“If we can get back to the day to day operations and not have all the executive sessions, we can keep the cost down,” said Rodney Guthrie.
Police Chief, Shawn Martin, requested the council approve hiring a Warrant Officer.
“During our warrant roundup this year we collected over $40,000. Right now we have over 9,000 outstanding warrants for over $2,000,000,” Chief Martin explained.
Murdock stated the warrant officer could legally be paid out of the building security fund. She said the fund has over $66,000 in it. She said that with all benefits, the salary would be around $45,000.
Steven Farmer said he wanted to make sure there was enough money in the security account to do the improvements the city had planned.
“Could this be Brad Elliot?” Frank Jackson asked. “Brad Elliott knows our town and the people. He is a good officer,” said Frank Jackson.
“Yes. In the 6 years Brad worked for Ellis County, he collected over $600,000 in outstanding warrants,” added Martin.
The council voted unanimously to hire a warrant officer to be paid from the security fund the first year of employment.
The council approved the proposed budget with the changes they had discussed.
The council was given an update on the status of Walmart. They were told that the construction had begun. The city has been told the operating hours would be 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. They will be open every day except Christmas Day. They will sell groceries and gas. There will also be a pharmacy in the building.
The council was also told that plans were still in the works for the Love’s Truck Stop.
Reports from Meeting: