Danielsville talks budget figures, pay raises

New city clerk Connie Riley presented the budget, which calls for $1,179,019 in revenue and expenses (up $222,251 from 2008) including a 5.8 percent cost-of-living pay raise for all city employees, including the council. This budget, if adopted, will allow the millage rate for 2009 to remain the same as in 2008 at 2.85.

Riley said she considered the proposed budget to be “fairly accurate,” saying she had put together the figures as accurately as possible under the circumstances and time constraints.

Riley said the budget would probably need amendments to adjust it from time to time during the year. She said the city’s only feasible alternative at this time would be to go back to the 2008 budget and adopt it.

Councilwoman Junne Temple expressed her concerns over the budget, saying she had no actual figures in hand to verify the numbers which would allow her to make a “concerted, informed decision.”

Temple said the statement was not a reflection on Riley.

“I know there’s been a lot of work that’s gone into this,” she said, adding that it was a “vast improvement” over 2008.

“But once again I feel that my hands are tied and the blindfolds are on,” she said.

Riley estimated that it would take at least two months to research the “unknowns” on the budget after she receives the required information from the city’s auditor.

Riley added that reviewing previous years’ budgets has left her with “no idea where some of the numbers came from.”

Temple also said she objected to giving employees a 5.8 percent raise during these hard economic times.

“I know I’ll meet with opposition, but I just feel like in this time of economic woes, plus not knowing where we stand exactly, that to give a 5.8 percent increase is a little bit extravagant,” Temple said, adding that she is not opposed to raises if the situation improves.

Council members agreed that they would give up their own increases. City attorney Victor Johnson pointed out that a council cannot give itself a raise, unless a previous council voted that future councils would get such increases. Johnson said he would research the matter before next Monday’s meeting.

Councilman Roger Watson said the personnel policy on raises was changed several years ago so that city employees would receive the same increase as government employees for cost of living, which is usually two or three percent. Watson said city employees had received five percent raises across the board each year before that.

“It was changed to keep them from getting so much, and it’s not fair to cut it now because it’s jumped up this year,” Watson stated.

“I think the workers deserve their raise …. we’re only here twice a month,” councilwoman Barbara Dove told fellow council members.

Temple agreed that employees were deserving of a raise and should have one — when things improve.

Riley estimated that the pay increases, including council members, would cost the city $17,000.

Johnson told the council that revisions could be made to the budget after the public hearings are completed, if the council so chooses.

The council also discussed, but took no action on, a pay increase for city clerk Riley. Riley’s salary is set at $10 per hour currently. Mayor Glenn Cross recommended that her salary be raised to at least $12 per hour.

Temple said she would prefer to review Riley’s salary at the end of her probationary period in two months.

In other business, the council voted to pay a $662.25 invoice to BB&T Bank for copies of thousands of pages of records subpoenaed by the GBI for their investigation into the missing funds allegedly stolen by former city clerk Michelle Dills.

Johnson said the expense should be recoverable through insurance since it is related to the investigation.

In a separate matter, the council approved a sewer line extension to the Golden Pantry on Hwy. 29 South. The move allows engineers and city workers to proceed with plans and a cost analysis. City employee Jerry Riley was instructed to obtain the difference in price for a six-inch line and an eight-inch line.

The city may decide to pay the difference between a six-inch line, which has been requested, to an eight-inch line, which will accommodate future expansion of the system down Hwy. 29.

Madison Animal Hospital, which is moving into the Griffith House next door to the Golden Pantry by Feb. 1, will hook onto the sewer line, but the convenience store may not at this time.

The council is expected to decide on the line size and an easement variance at their meeting next Monday.