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As members of the Edwardsville City Council took their first in-depth look at the 2011 budget during a work session Monday night, it became clear the addition of personnel would be the topic most up for debate.

In his presentation to council members, City Administrator Michael Webb suggested hiring an assistant police chief to alleviate some of the work load from Police Chief Mark Mathies, who has also been acting as fire chief since the retirement of Cliff Lane last December.

But council member John Eickhoff was not sold on the idea.

“I’m just going to tell you, I don’t want to see any new employees at all until 2012, and I don’t want to see any type of increase in wages,” Eickhoff said.

Webb said the general fund, which is where wages are paid out of, is in a place where a new assistant police chief could be afforded. He said the estimate was that the new position would cost, with wages and benefits, a total of $100,000.

Eickhoff said the city should take the $100,000 and transfer it to improve other areas of the budget that would require mill levy increases to cover.

“We have the opportunity to hold the mill levy with what we got,” Eickhoff said. “We can’t continue to gouge the citizens of Edwardsville just to meet your guys’ needs.”

Eickhoff added that he thought Mathies was handling the duties of both jobs just fine.

Mathies said the hiring of an assistant chief was not a matter of want, but a matter of need.

“It’s about priorities,” Mathies said. “I’m splitting my time on major projects and, it’s an unfortunate statement, but the fire department needs more attention than what I’m giving it right now.”

Webb’s report included snapshots of other areas of the budget, beginning with the city’s assessed valuation, which dropped from $48,820,867 in 2010 to $46,241,197 in 2011.

The valuation drop will mean $87,010 in property tax revenues for the general fund and $22,487 in the cemetery fund, giving the city a total drop in property tax revenue for 2011 of $109,497.

That, however, is forecast to be made up slightly with a $21,441 gain in sales tax revenue.

Some options Webb suggested considering in the final budget would be a mill levy increase for debt service, not adding to the cemetery fund for another year, decreasing transfers from streets to debt to fund street repairs, increasing the sewer rate in the mobile home park to $1 per month, increasin transfers from sewer to debt by $10,000 and eliminating wage increases for non-union and fire employees.

Budget discussions will continue at the Aug. 9 meeting.

During the council’s regular meeting, council members:

• Heard from Police and Fire Chief Mark Mathies that an agreement had been reached with Kansas City, Kan., for the Edwardsville’s contract emergency management services. The new contract will cost Edwardsville $75,000, which is up from the roughly $40,000 spent last year.

• Discussed the idea of conducting another half-cent sales tax increase election. City Clerk Phyllis Freeman said the final cost to the city for the previous election, which voters failed, was $2,792.

The council will discuss the issues further at its Aug. 9 meeting.

• Approved, 5-0, to award a bid for general street repairs to Harbour Construction and B and K Paving.

Harbour Construction will handle the mill and overlay work on 4th Street, north and south of the railroad crossing.

B and K Paving will handle the replacement of pavement markings at the crossing and the 4th Street and Kansas Highway 32 intersection. Webb said the markings indicating which lanes are turn lanes had worn away, causing a few minor accidents.

The estimated cost for the total project is between $50,000 and $60,000.

• Approved, 5-0, the 2009 audit report prepared by Wendling Noe Nelson and Johnson LLC.

The report showed the city ended the year without any deficit in the unencumbered cash balance in any fund, which is the first time this has happened since 2004. The general fund moved from a negative $17,488 unencumbered cash balance to a positive $329,984 unencumbered cash balance.

One budget violation was found in the solid waste fund, where $685 was expended over what was budgeted. Because of sufficient cash available, however, the fund ended the year with an unencumbered cash balance of $5,211.

• Approved, 5-0, minutes from the June 28 meeting.

• Approved, 5-0, payment of bills totaling $70,569.12.

Comments

1. 

   hmm (anonymous) says…

   Maybe hiring a full time fire chief would be a good idea. You know someone with experience in running a fire department. Let someone with experience in running a fire department run the department. Just because he can somewhat run the police department doesn't mean he can run a fire deptartment too. Seems we could used to afford both, what happened?

   July 19, 2010 at 4:48 p.m.

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