City facing $396,680 budget shortfall

Because of the police pay raises approved last month, the deficit in the City of Clinton’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year has been increased to just short of $400,000.
The budget calling for $396,680 in deficit spending was formally adopted at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting. The vote was 4-1 with Jason Hulin saying no. Don Rodolph made the motion to adopt it, and Chuy Rosales seconded. Bobby Stewart and Mayor David Berrong also voted yes.
A preliminary budget with a deficit of approximately $258,000 had been presented a month earlier. But the police raises that should cost about $154,000 were added after Mayor Berrong made an impassioned plea for them in the wake of a report from Police Chief David Crabtree that his department was operating with 27 percent fewer personnel than it was authorized.
Hulin also had voted against the police raises, saying the city sales tax was down 8 percent over the last three years.
The deficit will be made up by using reserve funds built up when times were better.
Police aren’t the only city employees who’ll be getting pay raises with the new budget, which becomes effective July 1. In a letter with the proposed budget distributed last month, City Manager Mark Skiles said it included raises of 2 percent for department heads and 4 percent for all other personnel. In his letter, Skiles said raises for those employees would cost approximately $93,000.
The budget adopted Tuesday includes those raises as well as the police pay hikes.
Of course the city also plans to hire an economic development director soon, and those costs are part of the new budget too.
Chief Crabtree said Wednesday the impact of the police raises is already being felt. He said his department had been short five officers on the street but he’s been able to hire three just since last month’s vote and a fourth is awaiting results of a pre-employment physical.
A 15-percent increase in employee health insurance premiums was part of the original budget too.
Councilman Hulin said Friday that his no vote on the budget was based on the fact that a $6.50 surcharge was added to utility bills last year and voters also approved a reallocation of at least $300,000 from the Capital Improvement Fund to the General Fund each year.
Yet despite that extra revenue coming in, he said the city still will be dipping into reserves for another $400,000 this year.
“Nothing is going to resolve it except the sales tax,” he said. “I think we should look at giving that $6.50 (from the utility fee) back to the citizens.”