Friday, December 31, 1999
Senoia 2000 budget jumps 10%

By JOHN THOMPSON
Coweta Editor

The city of Senoia is starting off the new year with a significantly larger budget than last year's.

City Council Tuesday night unanimously approved a $1.1 million operating budget for fiscal year 2000, which is nearly 10 percent larger than 1999's.

Mayor Joan Trammell explained the raise in this year's totals is due to several reasons.

First, the city is building a sewer system, which should increase revenues and expenditures.

The biggest part of the budget is the city's police budget, which came in at $393,000. Salaries are up in the department, but Trammell said the city is finally fully staffed with 10 police officers.

Trammell said she also figured $9,000 into the police department's budget to use as incentives to try and keep the police officers from moving rapidly to other departments around the region.

“We've raised the salary to where I think we're competitive with other departments and the incentives should help keep the officers here,” she said.

The incentive program will add $1 an hour to an officer's salary after he or she stays with the department after a year.

In figuring this year's budget, Trammell said she figured conservatively when it came to revenues because she would rather be surprised at the end of the year than scrambling to find funds.

While the city continues to grow, Trammell said the revenues from items such as water tap-on fees will increase. But, she also would like to find other revenue sources from items such as impact fees.

The mayor hopes to have a committee formed this year to study impact fees and recommend a fee structure to the council.

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