Council and city staff held a budget workshop July 17 that lasted more than four hours.

On the agenda: Discussion over upkeep of the newly-built Unity Park and The Stroll, as well as the burgeoning public works department.

“Most of what we talked about was rearranging departments, like the new public works department,” said City Administrator Paul Mendes. “The new park puts a whole new level of responsibility for maintaining it. We’re looking to get people in here on our own rather than contract out. When you have people that actually belong to you they’re more responsive.”

He added that the city is not unhappy with their contractors, but that they “have had a real growth spurt in the last year and need to able to respond to some of the area.”

The newly-installed public works department, which got the go-ahead from the council to be built upon, will create a few full-time positions.

“We’re hoping to add three to four people in the public works department,” said Mendes. “Not only will they work with water, sewer, reading meters, billing, the park and helping with community events, they will give us some manpower when we need it for the public.”

He added that the salaries for the positions have been included in the budget.

In the wake of a February audit that showed the city had more than tripled its general fund deficit since last year, Mendes said the city is hoping to project lower than last year’s budget total of $2.4 million.

“Council was quite conservative this year on estimation of income to make sure we have enough money to make it through the year,” said Mendes. “We tried to trim back the number and just approach it very conservatively. They (the council) were expecting things to be more productive than they turned out to be last year.”

As for the tax rate, Mendes said the council is hoping to keep it “pretty close” to the current rate set last year, which is .4914 cents and are waiting on numbers from the Montgomery County Tax Assessor’s Office, which they expect to receive sometime in August.

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