City closes the books on 2015

City closes the books on 2015

West Memphis council finalizes budget amendments

news@theeveningtimes.com “Taking Care of Business” could have been the theme song for the first city council meeting in February. Councilors passed a resolution Feb.

4, finalizing changes to last year’s budget. With the money already spent, the voice-vote took care of final line-item adjustments as part of year-end financial housekeeping.

“This is just a clean-up of 2015 so the treasurer can finish the budget and get it ready for audit,” said Councilman Tracy Catt. “The resolution is $313,755.”

“We can clean it up with an explanation,” said Councilman James Pulliaum.

Catt, the Budget Committee chairman, produced a list detailing the changes. Line items receiving the adjustment dealt with the Police Department, Animal Control and the Roberta Jackson Neighborhood Center. City Council voted to close the neighborhood center last year for health and safety reasons. The line items adjusted there were $450.00 for building improvements, $3,300 increase in actual utility expense and $900 listed under office supplies.

The center remains closed.

Preliminary repair estimates were forwarded to city council for consideration last year.

Police spending was adjusted to reflect experience as well.

The way police car purchases were done changed last year with city council approval.

With more Tahoes purchases approved, the expense difference amounted to a $178,645 increase in the budget to a total of $248,000. Narcotics spending increased to a total of $90,000 from $10,000 originally budgeted to cover costs of maintenance and equipment, clothing and autos.

Animal control had a $40,000 budget adjustment for salaries and social security tax.

In all the line items moved from $230,065 lined out in the original 2015 budget to $543,820 in the budget amendment.

By John Rech