Council Votes on Budget, Discusses Rates, City Shop

The Monticello City Council voted to tentatively approve their $9.691 million preliminary budget for 2014 Tuesday night at their regular business meeting.

This vote came after some heated discussion over the proposed city shop and the power cost adjustment (PCA)—that affects electric rates.

Mayor Bryan Standifer put the budget up for a vote Tuesday after the council had five work sessions to balance and go through the budget line item by line item.

Before the voting began, Mayor Pro tem Bobby Jacobs asked City Manager, Tim Sweezey about his “creative” accounting numbers where the city appeared to have revenues of $49,242 for the next budget year that could be spent on anything, and the city manager was recommending it be spent on three percent raises for every city employee.

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This extra revenue is what’s left if the city shop is built using money from this years budget.

Mayor Pro tem Jacobs commented that if the city had extra money, the PCA could come down half a point or more to help the utility bills and the citizens.

Mr. Jacobs expressed that he was worried about continuing to take money out of the competitive trust, stating that money has to last.

Councilman Cornell Willimas spoke on the work sessions that were held on the budget and the work the attending members put in, that Mr. Jacobs waited until the regular council meeting to bring up another option.

Mayor Standifer stressed the importance of being at the work sessions to have issues resolved before the regular meeting.