Whitney Downard / The Meridian StarThe City of Meridian is facing some tough decisions when it comes to crafting the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

After weeks of budget negotiations, the Meridian City Council faces a tough decision when it comes to crafting the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. 

“My goal is not to have any play money out there,” Fannie Johnson, the council president and Ward 3 representative, said.

An audit in June revealed possible areas to cut, namely overtime, and two entities that spent more than they took in: Union Station and the Lakeview Municipal Golf Course.

The Jackson-based accounting firm Breazeale, Saunders & O’Neil, Ltd. presented the council with a report in June detailing the city’s stagnant revenue and slightly increased expenses.

The firm reported that the city lost more than $250,000 on the golf course and an additional $254,000 on Union Station.

Golf course under a spotlight

Since then, the golf course has been under a spotlight, with citizens publicly advocating for or against the county’s only public golf course.

The council has seemed reluctant to close or sell the course, quizzing Aleasha Jordan, the operations manager for Parks and Recreation, about its viability last week.

“We have lessened the expenditures every year,” Jordan said. “We do have a plan to create revenue.”

This included improving the course’s greens, attracting more area golfers and increasing prices.

The council seemed hopeful about the course following a presentation by local resident and golfer Tommy Williams that suggested losses on the course may total less than $100,000, according to his analysis of the course’s spending.

Brandye Latimer, the city’s director of Finance and Records and the City Clerk, told the council that their figures were higher than Williams’ numbers.

“For this year, they might break even because we took employees from Lakeview and transferred them to Public Works,” Latimer said.

However, Monday budget discussions revealed that despite course improvements use of the course has declined.

“They’ve made a lot of improvements,” Kim Houston, the representative for Ward 4, said. “I thought they’d be coming back.”

 The city listed only two employees based at the course: Jacquelyn Clay-Leggett, a golf shop attendant paid $27,040 annually, and James Carson, a recreation program supervisor paid $40,000 a year. 

For Fiscal Year 2017 and nearly all of Fiscal Year 2018, the Lakeview Enterprise Fund for the City of Meridian spent $308,064, according to invoices requested from the city under the Freedom of Information Act.

The biggest charge to a vendor from the account was $60,600 paid to Jerry Pate Turk & Irrigation, Inc. over the course of 2017. The biggest single purchase, for $40,000, included a Toro Reelmaster, or a mower designed to cut turf and greens followed by $10,321 for a Toro Sand Pro, which rakes sand traps.

The power bill, from East Mississippi Electric Power Association, averaged $1,342 a month, or $30,873 total.

Using nine different vendors, officials spent $42,901 on food or beverages over two years, not including alcohol or food preparation license renewals. 

Like many golf courses, upkeep of the grounds is costly, with sprinkler fixes, aeration of the course, sand purchases and golf equipment, costing the city approximately $400,000 a year, according to Monday budget discussions.

Maintaining the fleet of vehicles at the course, contracted out to Municipal Supply Room, cost $16,006, with monthly bills ranging from $727 to $4,489. Fuel for the vehicles, bought from three different vendors, costs an additional $19,494. 

“We’re trying to find a way,” Houston said in Monday’s meeting. “But we do have this EPA issue.”

Infrastructure needs

Houston was referring to the $126 million Meridian will have to spend over the course of 20 years to address issues found by the Environmental Protection Agency in the city’s sewer system. This cost includes plant upgrades, new technology such as Closed Circuit Television and additional employees in the Public Works department. 

Hugh Smith, the director of Public Works, previously told the council that Meridian would need to increase its water rates by 4.5 – 4.6 percent annually to pay for system updates.

However, recent infrastructure funding from the state, approved earlier this week during a special session, could offset those costs to the city. Smith couldn’t be reached to discuss how these additional monies could help the city. 

Cutting costs

With such a big, expensive project hanging over the heads of the council, finding other places to cut costs has been paramount. 

The council discussed cutting back on the number of vehicles city employees are allowed to take home to reduce fuel costs. Currently, 29 people are allowed to take their vehicles home, including Mayor Percy Bland and three department heads. 

“We can cut our gas budget down tremendously if we park our cars overnight in the city parking garage,” Houston said. 

(List of authorized City of Meridian drivers authorized to take city-owned vehicles home, at left, doesn’t include vehicles from the Police Department.)

Increasing revenue

While most council members have focused on places to cut costs, Bland has also asked the council to consider ways to increase revenue, which the city primarily earns through ad valorem or sales taxes.

“The bottom line is we’ve decided to cut back on as many things as we can without reducing staff,” Bland said. “We haven’t increased taxes in 11 years and it’s going to be really hard to provide without an ad valorem tax increase.” 

Even the county has raised taxes in the time since Meridian last raised taxes, Bland said. 

Bland said he wants to build on the momentum in the city and address needs such as paving and public safety. With new paving equipment and increased salaries for police officers and firefighters, Bland said those improvements cost Meridian.

“We need more revenue to make things happen,” Bland said. “(Public safety) was a cost to us. It was $800,000 in salary alone. To provide those salaries, we’ve got to position ourselves to do that and put money in reserves. The reality is our margins are too thin.”

Two possibilities

Bland said he was creating two budgets for the council to consider: one without a tax increase and one with a tax increase.

“The bottom line is we need to find a better use for our resources,” Fannie Johnson said. “And spend our money a bit more wisely.”

Johnson said the council would consider billets, or positions, within the city and whether unfilled positions could be combined with existing employees.

“We’re looking at billets, at giving people additional duties and whether we can put two jobs into one,”Fannie Johnson said. 

Tyrone Johnson, who represents Ward 2, said he wanted to ensure residents continue to receive the same services.

“We just want to make sure that the citizens of the City of Meridian are getting all of the services that the government has to offer,” Tyrone Johnson said. “When it comes to increasing taxes, currently, I would not be in favor of that.”

Tyrone Johnson said he wanted to look for more places in the budget where cuts could be made and said the council had questions about how some of the money was spent in the past, promptly a closer look.

“We’re trying to figure out where the tax-payers’ money is going,” Tyrone Johnson said. “Each council member is very concerned about what is going on in the city.”

Primarily, Tyrone Johnson said he wants the budget to include money for paving, clearing abandoned lots and revitalizing blighted areas.

“Meridian is not going to grow unless we get this budget done,” he said. “And we don’t spend money on things that won’t help it grow. We want this done the right way.”

Story continues below photo.

What department heads want in this year’s budget

Benny Dubose, Police Chief

“We submitted a budget that was pretty bare bones,” Dubose said. “We won’t be able to make any big purchases.”

Dubose said that with the council looking to make cuts, manpower could be studied.

However, Dubose noted that most big purchases for the police department, such as new vehicles, came from funds seized in drug arrests.

“We haven’t really been a burden on taxpayer money anyhow,” Dubose said. “I don’t really see where they could make any more cuts.”

As for overtime, a big concern of the independent auditor, Dubose said overtime was unavoidable because of court dates, increased holiday saturation and special city events that need security.

“Overtime is one of the things that has to happen in law enforcement,” Dubose said. “It’s just one of the things that can’t be avoided.”

Doug Stephens, Director of Public Safety/ Homeland Security

Stephens said that the Department of Public Safety, which has the smallest of all department budgets, asked for the exact same funding as the previous year.

“We come up with creative ways to offer training at a low cost, if at any cost,” Stephens said, adding that a combination of grants and partnerships allow the department to offer discounted training.

Hugh Smith, Director of Public Works

“Of course we’re dealing with limited funds,” Smith said. “That’s equated to a lack of manpower and equipment purchases.”

Public Works has the biggest workforce and consequently, combined with pricy equipment, the highest budget. Ideally, Smith said the department would be able to purchase an additional street sweeper and boom truck as well as replace a dated bucket truck.

By The Numbers

With budget negotiations underway, the Meridian City Council must evaluate each department to determine where cuts can be made. The biggest cost to the city is  payroll, which accounts for 60 percent of the budget.

Last year’s budgeted salaries cost the city more than $16 million alone, not including benefits such as healthcare, with more than 75 percent of that spending going to the city’s three biggest departments: Fire, Police and Public Works.

With 141 employees, Public Works’ salaries tally up to $4,240,021, or an average salary of $30,071. Average salaries for Fire and Police come in at $36,167 and $37,785, respectively, with 106 employed by the Fire Department and 114 by the Police Department. All three departments have vacancies.

“With things like that, that concerns me in regards to the upcoming year,” Smith said.

Already, Smith said the number employed by Public Works had decreased with 16 layoffs in October and 6 retirements in June.

“Even if you look on a part-time basis our numbers are down and with minimum funding I expect them to remain flat,” Smith said. “Because we’re a labor intensive operation, it’s going to make a difference in what people see.”

One concern for the council has been the multi-million pricetag attached to many of the infrastructure upgrades deemed necessary by a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency. Smith said those projects didn’t have earmarked funds yet, but the council could decided to issue a bond or utilize the state agency’s water fund loans.

“We knew it was going to be a lean fiscal year even before fiscal year talks,” Smith said. “As a department, we’ve internally looked at ways to streamline our operations but at the end of the day there’s only so much we can do.

“I’m still not satisfied with the way and manner we sweep our street.”

Ricky Leister, Fire Chief

“We’re going to be pretty much stable like we were last year,” Leister said. “We’re going to try to get our manpower back up.”

A shortage of ten firefighters has contributed to costly overtime for the department, Leister said, which he said he hopes to remedy with lateral transfers from other municipal fire departments and an interest class in October for new recruits.

“Lateral transfers will reduce the cost to us because we don’t have to invest in (initial training) for firefighters,” Leister said, naming the introductory courses for new firefighters. “Getting more firefighters would reduce overtime dramatically.”

Leister said that the department would implement a Cancer Prevention Program in September with new protocols designed to reduce the risk of cancer, which is higher in firefighters than the general population. Using grant money, Leister said the department had purchased new hoods and wipes that would work in conjunction with the new department protocols.

Laura Carmichael, Director of Community Development

Via email, Carmichael said, “The Community Development Department has been working to develop the 2019 budget and does not expect to see many changes for the upcoming year. We have budgeted additional funds for the demolition of condemned houses.”

 Parks and Recreation doesn’t currently have a director. Brandye Latimer, the City Clerk and director of Finance and Records couldn’t be reached for this story.