Work on town’s budget continues

By WAYNE QUESENBERRY/Staff

Wytheville Town Council continues fine tuning its proposed $18.9 million budget for 2008-09. It had tentatively scheduled the first reading of the budget for Monday evening’s meeting but instead held a brief work session.
Budget and finance committee member John W. Jones Jr. noted that operational and personnel expenses have continued to escalate as has the inflation rate. He also pointed out that growth in revenues has not kept pace with the growing expenditures within the budget.
“For the past couple of years,” Jones said, “we have utilized reserve funds for balancing the budget. We believe that this a trend that must be reversed in that revenues received should pay for all operational and personnel expenses without the infusion of reserve funds into these normal operating expenditures.”
Council agreed.
The town has $14 million in reserves, according to Town Manager Wayne Sutherland. It plans to use $3.1 million from the reserves to fund several projects.
While total general fund revenues show a decrease of $234,000 for the upcoming year, water and sewer revenues have increased by $1.6 million.
Other departments showing increased funding for the upcoming year are street maintenance (increase of $207,461), refuse collection (an increase of $73,857) and the fire department (an increase of $69,540).
The proposed budget includes a 2.5 percent salary increase for town employees.
Commenting on the various departments’ requests for additional funding, Town Treasurer Mike Stephens said, “Nobody got everything but everybody got something.”
The first reading of the proposed budget will be at council’s meeting on Tuesday, May 27 (date change because of Memorial Day holiday). A public hearing will be held at the Monday, June 9, meeting with the budget ready for adoption at the Monday, June 23, council meeting.
Wayne Quesenberry can be reached at 228-6611 or .