BENTON — Benton Mayor Rick Holland proposes cutting economic development spending to balance the 2010 budget, a plan that would avoid charging city employees more for their health insurance.
Holland suggests cutting $26,000 out of $116,000 from the Community Development Department’s operations budget. The department works to attract retailers, restaurants and employers to the Saline County city.
The proposal comes after city officials floated the idea of tacking on an additional $25 a month per employee for health-insurance plans to help balance the budget.
“As much as I hate to see[economic development] be cut, I certainly would be in favor of doing this than having employees pay $25 a month more for health insurance,”said Lamont Cornwell, the city’s head of community development.
H e s a i d the cut would mean he’ll be relying more on the Saline County Economic Development Corp. to help promote the city. And he said the city will do less advertising and have to do more “legwork” to land businesses.
The money would come from the operations andmaintenance budget and would not affect personnel.
The major economic development plans for the new year include coming up with a blueprint for updating the main commercial corridor along what’s called upper Military Road. The city’s hope is to improve the roadway, hide power lines, connect shopping centers so drivers don’t have to get on the main road, add green space and, in general, spruce it up.
“That will take majority dollars I have left,” Cornwell said of the plan itself.
He said it’s important to have a plan ready in the event that funding becomes available to begin improvements.
With the $26,000 cut, and $50,000 already promised to the Saline County Economic Development Corp., that leaves the Community Development Department with about $40,000, Cornwell said.
Other city departments have already made cuts to help balance the budget, which is proposed at just over $10.5 million.
Holland said the mayor’s office alone cut more than 10 percent. Police cut around 4 percent and the Fire Department trimmed close to 6 percent of planned spending, he said.
The city typically commits 75 percent of the city’s overall revenue to fund public safety. In 2010, Holland said, the share will be around 82 percent.
Holland said he is optimistic that even in these tough economic times, sales-tax revenue will stay steady or continue to rise, as the city has seen recently. And he said departments will be frugal and work to spend less than what is budgeted.
“Even though we have a balanced budget, I know from experience our department heads are still going to come in under budget in 2010,” Holland said.
The City Council is expected to vote on the plan at its first meeting of the new year on Jan. 11.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 12/28/2009