Updates From The Office of the Mayor

It has been a while since I’ve written.  I will do this without a proof reader.  Lord help us!

First Mid-Year Budget and FY18 Budget

I presented my first Mid-Year Budget Review to the Council.  It included numerous (24) resolutions that needed funding sources.  All recommended funding sources were approved by the City Council and the Mid-Year Budget was adopted without change.  We expect to end FY17 with expenses as budgeted or slightly below.  And, we expect revenues to be higher than expected.  In the simple terms the City has:

• Recurring Expenses  e.g. salaries or expenses that happen continuously.  We pay those out of “Current Year Revenues”.
• Capital Purchases are paid from “Unassigned Fund Balance” or funds remaining beyond budget.  These are purchases that will happen once or that we hope to purchase annually, e.g. vehicle and equipment replacement.
• We expect the “Unassigned Fund Balance” to be around $3M as of 9/30/17.

The approved resolutions that required funding sources included items like:

• $2.3M for fire trucks
• $170K to refurbish street sweepers
• $452K (1.5% Cost of Living and Market Based Salary Adjustments)

I commend our department directors and City team for being working efficiently.  I also want to thank our residents and visitors for making their purchases in Decatur!

It Takes a Team!

Much was mentioned about the wonderful job our residents, business, organizations and the Street & Environmental team did to make Decatur cleaner during the recent Clean-Up Campaign.  And, thank you to everyone that pitched in for Decatur.  While the campaign was taking place all City departments were doing their best to provide our residents with optimum customer service with their available resources.  Our departments are providing services while adjusting to a software transition.  The City of Decatur continues to transition from New World to Tyler Munis software.  Any software change has its challenges, but we continue to learn more and improve daily.  It truly takes a team!

July 17th Council Meeting

Thank you to First Priority Executive Director Larry Franks for leading our invocation and Pledge of Allegiance.  The City presented a Proclamation to Mr. Franks proclaiming August 6th as the Annual Day of Prayer for Students.  Please contact First Priority to learn how you can participate.

A portion of Daikin America $100K gift was allocated to paint and update downtown street lights to energy efficient LED lighting.  The paint, developed Daikin, will be used on the light poles.

The Council approved $260,858, for the purchase of heavy equipment to be used for purpose of street and drainage repairs and that the funding source shall be from funds in Unassigned Fund Balance.  The equipment should arrive in eight (8) weeks and will allow Streets and Environmental Services to remove trees and other growth from our drainage system.

Awarded a bid $4.6M (paid for from Landfill Enterprise Fund) Atlantis Commercial Group for Closure of MSW Cells 12 and 13 at the Decatur-Morgan County Regional Landfill.

Approve Purchase of (2) Waste Hauling Trailers and (1) Over the Road Tractor for Solid Waste Department in an amount not to exceed $245,000 (to be paid from Solid Waste designated fund).

Awarded bid to Autoclear, LLC for X-Ray Scanners (to be paid from Correction Fund).  This will allow us to transition from hand/wand scanners at two security check points to walk-through scanners.

Maintaining City Properties

There is no doubt we need to do a better job of maintaining our properties.  And it needs to begin before the FY18 budget.  Our Parks & Recreation team will submit a plan for improving property maintenance for me to present during the next City Council Work Session.  The next Work Session will be July 31st at 5:00 PM and the next Council Meeting will be August 7th at 6:00 PM.

It’s Budget Time!

Next week we will begin meeting with department directors as we prepare our FY18 budget.  This will be my first budget and I look forward to delivering a balanced budget that provides for the needs of our community.  Stay tuned.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve.  Tab