Last minute requests by Livingston and Tucker delay New Albany budget passage

New Albany aldermen adopted a 25-year comprehensive plan Tuesday but could not reach agreement on the proposed city budget because of possible last-minute changes brought up after the public hearing was over.

No one spoke up during the public hearing on the budget, but passage was stalled when Ward One Alderwoman Amy Livingston brought up several issues much later near the end of the meeting as the board was about to go into executive session.

Livingston brought up several issues including some related to salaries, citing comments from citizens.

She does not want to give a raise to the mayor or aldermen and recommended a 1.5-percent raise for city employees instead of the more traditional three-percent cost-of-living increase that is in the budget. “One point five percent is plenty across the board,” she said.

She wants to allocate $20,000 for a city planner or at least someone who can do that type of work on a part-time basis. She did not think the mayor or community development staff could or should be undertaking this. She mentioned several possible sources of funding by cutting other parts of the budget such as taking money from the swimming pool fund. Ward Three Alderman Kevin Dale White disagreed with taking from the pool fund.

Alderman-at-Large Keith Conlee, who was participating by phone, said, “Amy, I appreciate your passion on this. But I disagree concerning a city planner.” He referred to Barber’s comment made earlier about the need for a partnership to implement the plan and said, “Tim’s got to take the lead.”

Ward Four Alderman Will Tucker said he wants to see money put into the budget for two police cars, which can be obtained for $18,000 each. No new vehicles were included in the budget as proposed Tuesday as a cost-saving measure. Police Chief Chris Robertson said he might be able to use drug task force money for cars but may not have enough because of a large number of drug cases to be presented to the grand jury with their accompanying expense for lab testing and other costs.

The budget needs to be complete and approved by Sept. 15 so Anderson suggested that anyone who has last-minute changes send them to him or the mayor or clerk.

The board will have a called meeting at 5:30 p.m. next Tuesday to choose an engineer for the Fred’s project and will continue discussion of the budget then.

Mayor Kent described the budget as “very tight this year.” He commended Anderson and Municipal Clerk Frankie Roberts for their work on the budget considering the financial restraints brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. “You did a yeoman’s job,” he said.

The budget is about three percent higher than for the past year.

Bob Barber describes the comprehensive plan process.

Orion Group principal Bob Barber briefly described the process for the comprehensive plan going on for the past year based on community input and noted that implementation will require a cooperative partnership effort by various community groups rather than a full-time planner.

Mayor Tim Kent said he would take the lead seeing the program is implemented. “I’ll just go down the list and see what the board wants to do next and we will see how much it costs,” he said. “They will have to approve it.” There has been no speculation as to the expense for everything in the plan, although the mayor said it could eventually cost millions of dollars.

Although the comprehensive plan is complete, the Orion Group is also scheduled to update city codes, particularly on zoning. Barber said his group will bring something to the board soon.

The idea is to make the codes more relevant to contemporary standards as well as easier for the average person to understand.

Ward Two Alderman Johnny Anderson noted that the city will pay the Orion Group $38,000 more for the code update, and that money is not in the budget as it was proposed Tuesday.

Rudy Watkins

In other business, aldermen heard a proposal from Rudy Watkins of the PATH Company in Jackson, Miss. He said that converting the city street lights to LED technology will be safer and more efficient, saving the city as much as $1 million over a 20-year period. Aldermen approved beginning the process of requesting qualifications, doing a lighting audit and coming up with a design. If the plan is approved all the lights could be converted in about eight months.

The street lights are actually owned by the light, gas and water department rather than the city.

In departmental business, Police Chief Robertson received permission to apply for a $14,990 Highway Safety Grant, which will pay for overtime for speeding, seat belt and other enforcement.

Fire Chief Mark Whiteside received permission to fill a vacancy by hiring Ethan Robbins, who was in the job applicant pool and is a volunteer fireman.

Aldermen approved the yearly assessed valuation and tax levy with no comment.

Alderwoman Livingston suggested creating a salary review committee, particularly concerning elected officials, in connection with her earlier comments about raises. She said she would like to see salaries set for a four-year period to run concurrently with the term of office and probably will bring a specific proposal to the board later.

Before adjourning and following the late budget comments, the board again voted to go into executive session to discuss a real estate issue but no action had been reported at this time.

Previous budget details discussion: http://newalbanyunionco.com/na-budget-7-3-million/