Annual raises for city employees were left out of the budget in order to free up some money the council can parcel out to charitable service agencies in the city. The salary freeze adds just over $300,000, giving the council about $551,000 to allocate, much less than the $1.1 million the agencies requested.
Councilman John Spain thought the raises should be included in the budget.
“We have a lot of 501(c)3 organizations that we are providing funding to, but I’m not sure it is reasonable to provide that 501c3 funding when our employees are going without a merit increase,” Spain said.
Councilman Ben Little disagreed.
“What we have to look at also is what those outside agencies are, where they are helping us,” Little said. “You just can’t measure what they do by the money, because we can’t see who they touch.”
The city’s finance department estimates the revenue it will receive very carefully, Finance Director Danny McCullars said, and will probably end the year within 1 percent to 2 percent of its projections. It can’t raise the estimates without some indication of a new source of funding, McCullars said.
The money for a pay raise would have to come from some source, either an increase in revenue or a decrease in expenditures elsewhere, said City Manager Don Hoyt.
In such a lean year, other cuts may be hard to make.
“When we began the process, we talked to department heads and we told the department heads to submit budgets that were below what they had, as best they could, below what they had in place for the past year,” Hoyt said. “Most of them came in with a small decrease.”
The councilmen did look at some ways to raise revenue including raising garbage fees to cover the contract with the sanitation service. The city would have to raise the rates around $2 a month, up to $8.68 to cover the cost of providing garbage service, said Public Works Director Bob Dean.
The council also looked at raising municipal court fees to the levels of the district court fees, a move that could bring in an extra $600,000 a year according to McCullars.
Councilman David Dawson brought up the fact that Anniston pays much more per citizen on quality of life expenditures such as the museums and the Parks and Recreation Department than other cities its size and could take steps to trim in that area.
He thought contracting out the city’s golf courses could conserve enough money to finance the annual raises. The city golf courses and restaurant have consistently lost money over the last four years and the finance department is estimating they will cost the city about $250,000 to operate in fiscal year 2011. E & E Golf Management had proposed leasing the city golf courses and Cane Creek Restaurant from the city at the council’s Aug. 10 meeting.
“What is the true cost to operate the Hill and what is the true cost to operate Cane Creek?” Dawson said. “What is the true cost for Cane Creek maintenance compared with what these other, the group that came before us is willing to pay the city for running and managing those?”
The next budget meeting will be Thursday at 3 p.m.
Contact staff writer Laura Camper at 256-235-3545.
