A proposed thirty four million dollar plus balanced budget is expected to be presented to the Greeneville City Council next week.
Calling it “a workable budget for a growing community,” City Manager Todd Smith opened a nearly two hour long budget workshop Wednesday afternoon at the GEA building announcing the balanced budget does not require a tax increase. The new budget allows for a two percent pay hike and step increase for employees.
Following Smith’s opening comments, Finance Director Lora Young outlined budget plans to council members for their input and discussion.
PARTNERSHIP FUNDING DEBATE
The most debate over the proposed budget dealt with the funding, or lack thereof in some opinions for the Greene County Partnership. While the $95,000 given to the Partnership last fiscal year related to Economic Development remains the same, a $55,000 cut in the Partnership funding through the Hotel/Motel Tax would lower the appropriation from $105,000 currently to $50,000 in fiscal year 2026.
Council member Matt Hensley at several times during the budget discussion, requested the appropriation be fully funded or at least brought closer to the amount requested.
To do so however, would require movement within the Hotel/Motel Tax budget itself, whether pulling from reserve funds in that particular part of the budget, or pulling funding for others who fall under the Hotel/Motel Tax and place that money back into the Partnership line item funding.
Partnership President and CEO Jeff Taylor addressed the council as did Partnership Board Chair Whitney Winter, Winter saying “at a Greene County Partnership meeting with Todd, Cal and Jeff on May 15th, a significant funding cut was proposed by the Town of Greeneville in their words, to pursue its own economic development activity and to cut tourism. I strongly opposed this proposal, because it threatened really to derail the progress made over the past five years and risk dividing the efforts that should remain unified.”
With a budget vote looming on Tuesday of next week, Vice Mayor Tim Teague requested Taylor submit an itemized list of expenditures to the council for their consideration before moving forward with the budget development as it pertains to the Partnership.
OTHERS ADDRESS THE BOARD
During the presentation, in addition to Taylor and Winter on behalf of the Partnership , the council heard from Parks and Recreation Athletic Director Tim Bowman, Greeneville City Schools CFO Ellen Lipe & Director of Schools Steve Starnes, Library Director Erin Evans, Airport Manager Angela Alley and 9-1-1 Director Jerry Bird.
MAYOR ABSENT
Still recovering from a stroke suffered just over a week ago, Mayor Cal Doty was absent for the budget workshop, which was being streamed online.
According to Todd Smith, the Mayor does plan to attend the City Council meeting next Tuesday, when the board is expected to vote on the budget on first reading.
OPENING COMMENTS FROM TODD SMITH
“We are presenting a balance budget with no tax increase proposed for the City Council to consider. It includes a 2% cost of living increase for employees, as well as the step increase that is a part of our employee pay plan to get us to a market average.”
PAY PLAN
“Now, I want to stop for just a second to talk about the pay plan that we are nearing step six of our six step pay plan in theory, when we get to step six, we are at that market average. Next year at some point, we probably want to have a conversation with you as to the philosophy behind employee pay. We’ve been doing this kind of step increase to get to the market average, but as we get there, what is the future look like and what is the expectations from the City Council in terms of the philosophy. Is it based on pay, on longevity, is it based on performance, is it based on other factors. So we may come back to you at some point in your future to get your input and see what direction you want to go.”
FUND BALANCE
“Our fund balance in the proposed budget is around 25% and our current fund balance policy essentially states that our fund balance is used as a bit of both a rainy day fund and as a capital investment fund. And our policy states it should stay somewhere between 25% and 35% of our operating budget. I’m going to suggest we may want to relook at that over the next few months. And I suggest that we may want to lower that to a threshold of 20 to 30% or some variation thereof. And I say that just in terms of our capital use. We know our extensive growth, what we’ve seen in the last few years with demands on growth, on infrastructure, on equipment and on buildings. And so it may be at this point I think we have a very healthy and very stable local government in terms of revenues and expenditures. But maybe we want to put a little bit more of our fund balance to use for big capital projects that we are looking at the next few years.”
CAPITAL PROJECTS
“Speaking of capital, our larger capital projects include Crowfoot Alley walkway project downtown that connects Crowfoot Alley with Depot Street to the tune of two to three hundred thousand dollars.
Highway 11-E improvements to improve turning movements on an off of 11-E to the tune of $500,000. That fits in with our five year street plan that we developed for the East Johnson Highway area. And then finally, we’ve got $175,000 to the Pocket Park which I’ll have an updated for the City Council next Tuesday.”
GROWTH
“So again, growth is pushing larger demands for greater and higher levels of services. It’s driving additional police officers, traffic improvements, equipment needs. Growing pains can place stresses on finances but that’s really a problem with success. So we are successful and are growing and some of that creates some level of pain sometimes when you have to make decisions. Many thanks to the department heads out there for their wise expenditures in this fiscal year, but also for their judicious and their level-headed request that they submitted to us. I want to thank Lora and her staff in the finance department for being very meticulous and a great amount of work, into a workable budget for a growing community.”
PAY INCREASE FOR MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS
“And then the city council for the job you do day in and day out. You’re very engaged in this community, you’re very involved, you’re present, you’re at several meetings. You take a lot of phone calls and you give a lot of feedback from phone calls you get. My recommendation is to increase the city council pay by will go up by $200 a month in the mayor’s increase will go up $400 a month.” (Currently the Mayor makes $400 per month and council members make $200 per month. The proposal would give the Mayor $800 a month and council members $400 per month) “And that’s just the reflection on the amount of time that you put into this. The number of phone calls, when you break that down on your per hour reimbursement, I know it’s below minimum wage. I know you put a lot of hours into the job and take it serious and that’s why I’ve included that in the budget recommendation.”
