By Jason C. Mattox

The Batesville Mayor and Board of Aldermen began the budgeting process for the upcoming fiscal year last Friday morning with Bill Crawford of Will Polk and Associates, the city’s CPA firm.

Crawford explained that the initial draft of the budget includes wish lists from department superintendents.

“We wanted to start with a worst case scenario to see what the ending cash balance would look like, and we might have to do some cutting because we cannot budget an overdraft,” he said.

Crawford also explained that the initial draft did not include raises.

The city gave a three-percent raise (plus a half-percent increase for longevity) this year.

Crawford said, to fund the budget as it was initially proposed, the city would need just over $2 million in additional revenue.

Mayor Jerry Autrey explained that the fire department is asking for three additional full-time firefighters during the coming year.

“We just hired three additional firefighters, but we haven’t seen any kind of decrease in the overtime,” he said. “That is a problem for me. I can’t see us adding three more if we won’t see a decrease in overtime.”

Ward 1 Alderman Bill Dugger said he thought the board had agreed to hire three additional firefighters last year and this year to improve the city’s fire rating.

“I think we need to consider bringing in a professional consultant for the fire department to tell us how to handle any changes we might have to make,” Ward 3 Alderman Stan Harrison said. “A consultant could probably tell us how to cut back without compromising the service the fire department provides.”

Aldermen then began discussing possible ways to balance the budget including the possibility of raising water rates and/or property taxes.

“We either have to raise revenues or we need to make some cuts, and the truth is, we don’t have a lot of fat in this budget,” Crawford said. “Every department can cut back, they might not like it, but they can.”

City Clerk Laura Herron said the department heads had been more conservative with their requests that they had in recent years.

“We cut everything we could cut last year, and I just don’t see what else we can cut,” Harrison said.

Crawford explained that the last water rate increase came in 2007.

“You haven’t gone up on your utilities in the past three years, and I can tell you it will be easier to go up a little each year rather than a higher percentage all at once,” he said.  

A four percent increase in water and sewer would bring the city an additional $70,000 in revenue.

“We need to be able to maintain and improve the infrastructure with increment increases,” Crawford said. “There will come a time when the city is going to have to spend a good bit of money to replace the old infrastructure.”

Aldermen discussed an increase of garbage pick-up rates to $11 a month, an additional $1.31 per month, but that figure could increase further if the county raises garbage rates.

“At this point, we are making about $1 a can on trash collection,” Harrison said.

“After we make this increase, we need to look at making small percentage increases annually,” Crawford said.

Dugger suggested the city request department heads to make a 10-percent cut to their overall budget.

“I just can’t see raising our rates or taxes if we haven’t at least tried to make cuts first,” he said.

Crawford said the city did have funds available from property sales, but said those funds are earmarked for economic development.

“Don’t we need to be of the mindset to fix the problem this year rather than just finding a pool of funds to get us through another budget?” Dugger asked.

Crawford said the budget was in a state of needing to be pared down to just the necessities of the city.

“People see these new trucks we have been buying lately that would cost them $40,000, and they can’t understand why, if we can get that for $25,000, why can’t we get a $25,000 truck for $12,000,” Crawford said.

“I can tell you other than a dump truck, we are not going to buy any new trucks this year,” the mayor said.

Autrey said the city needed to carefully consider new hires when superintendents ask to fill vacancies.

“We seem to have too many employees in some places,” he said. “Why should we have six employees when five can get the job done?”

Crawford said Dugger’s recommendation of cuts needed to be the first move to find the needed funds to balance the budget.

“Last time we had to make cuts like this, we had the department heads come in to tell us what they could cut,” Herron said.

“You can tell them if they can’t find the cuts, the board will find cuts for them,” Ward 2 Aldermen Ted Stewart said.

Aldermen were scheduled to meet again to discuss the budget Thursday evening at 5:30 p.m.

The final adoption date for the new budget it September 15.