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Fairburn to look at budget next week

By BEN NELMS
bnelms@TheCitizen.com

Fairburn council members will consider the adoption of a $9.488 million General Fund budget at the Sept. 26 meeting. The 47 percent increase over last year’s General Fund budget comes by way of significant increases in revenue projections from the city’s water and sewer and electric business. Increased revenues are slated to meet growing infrastructure and public safety needs. Meanwhile, city reserves continue to increase, positioned currently at over $11 million.

Projected General Fund revenues of $6.186 million for 2005-2006 are expected to increase by $389,900 over last year, but a positive variance of $3,302,400 from city Enterprise Funds makes up the difference and will allow for new or upgraded city services, said City Administrator Jim Williams. Three budget areas will benefit from the majority of the increased revenues experienced by the rapidly growing city. Those include the Fire Department, Public Works and the Police Department.

In the move to create its own Fire Department, the proposed budget allocates $1.836 million compared to the $312,900 budget the department carried during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. The Public Works budget, now split between Public Works Administration and Streets Maintenance totals $1.778 million compared to $1.29 million in 2004-2005. The increase, said Williams, is meant to upgrade city infrastructure that is getting older each year.

“When developing strategy we’ve gone much too long without improving our infrastructure. The idea here is to get as much of our older infrastructure up to date as possible,” he said.

The Fairburn Police Department’s 2004-2005 budget came in at $2.31 million and included the City Court budget. For 2005-2006, the two areas are split out, with the Police Department budget proposed at $2.672 million and City Court services at $243,000. Index crimes such as burglary, auto theft and assault continue to decrease since January while vehicular traffic on city streets continues to increase. Fairburn’s population has doubled since the 2000 census. The department is poised to fully implement Chief Charles Long’s Accountability Policing model in the coming weeks.

“The Police Department floundered for several years,” said Williams. “But now we have a chief that is reversing that trend.”

When all funds are considered the entire proposed city budget for 2005-2006 totals $20,161,000 compared to $16,605,900 for the 2004-2005 fiscal year, with nearly 90 percent of the increase coming from revenues generated from Enterprise Funds.

Williams said a prime consideration for all financial matters relates to the way the city spends money.

“We have a commitment not to spend a penny more than we make,” he said Monday. “We plan to end the year with a surplus in certain budget areas.”

In line with that rationale, Williams said the city’s surplus funds were headed in a downward direction until three years ago. Since that time, the situation has been reversed.

“The objective is to build a reserve surplus that we won’t go into unless we have a catastrophe,” he said.

Fairburn’s current surplus of reserve funds is more than $11 million.