NLR's mayor ready for vote on '15 budget

Revised plan adds $125,621 in funds from city reserves

Mayor Joe Smith said he's ready for the North Little Rock City Council to approve a revised general fund budget for 2015 at its meeting tonight.

Changes to the first draft increased the proposed budget to $61.62 million. That's up from the $61.5 million in the initial draft presented at the council's only budget workshop Nov. 6. The council held three workshops a year ago.

The proposed budget is 2.52 percent higher than the 2014 budget of $60.1 million approved by the City Council last year.

"It's all set as far as what I'm going to present," Smith said. "If they want to amend anything on Monday night, they will certainly have that opportunity.

"I'd like to get the general fund budget done," he added.

The revisions since the budget workshop last month will include another $125,621 to be taken from the city's fund balance, or reserves, said city Finance Director Karen Scott. The amount to be transferred -- for accounting purposes only, not an actual movement of funds -- will be $1,545,168, Scott said, up from $1,419,547 in the first draft budget.

The biggest chunk of money in the revised total is $71,000 for insurance coverage for the Fire Department's buildings, vehicles and legal defense fund that was left out of the department's original request, Scott said.

The city used $1.15 million from its reserves to balance the 2014 budget and said at that time that it preferred to refrain from using the cash reserve to balance future budgets.

A necessity to upgrade firetrucks resulted in the need to use the reserve fund this year and probably in coming years, Smith has said. The firetruck upgrades were included in the initial budget proposal.

The budget includes $1.25 million for new fire engines, part of what Smith has said is a new five-year plan to replace 12 firefighting vehicles at a projected cost of $8.95 million. The average city pumper truck is 13 years old; the oldest is 19 years old and has more than 120,000 miles on it, Smith has said.

"We could have done without it this year if our fire engines weren't in such bad shape," Smith said of using the city's reserves.

Another large expense for the city next year will be covering a 13 percent increase in employee health insurance premiums, also included in the original proposal. The city pays 100 percent of the premiums for employees and 75 percent of the cost for employees' family members. That expense will cost the city $6.87 million in 2015, a $770,730 increase from this year.

An additional $100,000 is included in the revised budget to be divided among the city's four wards for drainage and improvement funds. Each ward will now receive $75,000, with that funding coming from the city's 1 percent sales tax.

One-fourth of the city sales tax revenue, $4.06 million, is transferred from the general fund for capital improvement projects, instead of adding to the general fund total.

Metro on 12/08/2014

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