Friday, September 7,
2001
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Fairburn eyes 'bare bones' $11.5 million budget By JOHN
THOMPSON
Fairburn officials started wrangling with their budget Wednesday afternoon and learned it was a "bare bones" approach. City Administrator Tony Cox told City Council that the budget he prepared calls for rolling the property tax rate back to 4.24, but there is absolutely no room for errors if the council decides to adopt it. This year's proposed $11.5 million budget is double the city's budget from 1993. Cox explained the increase was due to the phenomenal growth that has occurred in the area and said the city's employment force has grown from 50 to 73 in the same time frame. While the budget Cox presented calls for a tax rate rollback to compensate for reassessed property values, his personal recommendation was that the council keep the tax rate at 4.5 mills. "That gives you about $25,000 in extra funds," he said. Included in this year's budget is a 2.5 percent raise for city employees. The budget does not include a requested three new police officers and also calls for very few new capital requests. Cox said the city receives most of its budget funds from sales tax, and sales tax growth is expected to be only 4 percent next year, instead of the normal 7 percent in a more robust economy. The biggest increase in requested funds this year is the city administration, which is up $256,000. Cox said nearly $190,000 of the increase goes to pay for the increased number of inspections the city has to do for developments. After Cox's budget presentation, Councilman Gene Wiggins had one question. "When does the good news start?" he asked. Cox said the council will have to decide by Oct. 10 whether it wants to keep the tax rate the same or decrease it by one-quarter of a point. Councilman Harvey Melear said he was going to examine some of the budget requests not approved by Cox and determine if the city should take some money from reserves to fund the requests. "I'm not opposed to taking some money from savings to pay for some of these things," he said.
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