Input sought, but none to be had at Mt. Pleasant’s budget hearing
By James Tilson
Associate Editor
6-6-2019
MT. PLEASANT—The Mt. Pleasant city council sought public input during hearings on the city budgets last Tuesday. However, no public appeared to comment, and the council moved forward on its process.
By statute, the Mt. Pleasant city council has to hold a public hearing prior to adopting any budget. Those hearings were scheduled for Tuesday May 28, with final adoption of the city budget to take place on June 11.
All of the budgets presented at the hearings were balanced, and no major changes are expected between the public hearings and the final adoption in June.
The city’s general budget comes in at a total of $2,797,765, which is about $100,000 less than last year. Most of the budget categories did not change significantly, with the exception of fire protection and pool and facilities. The pool section reflected a nearly $100,000 increase, to mark the promotion of the pool manager to full-time. At the same time, the fire protection budget was approximately $100,000 less, due to a onetime purchase of a truck for the fire department that was no longer in their budget.
The Mt. Pleasant Community Development and Renewal Agency (CDRA) budget came in at $971,200, which was an increase of $300,000 from last year. Monte Bona, executive director, was on hand to explain the difference was due to an increase in grant funding for several new projects. Grants for the improvement to the industrial park, for the trail from Mt. Pleasant to Spring City and Main Street renovations all go through the CDRA account. Bona said there may be additions to the CDRA budget through the year, as new funding gets approved.
The Local Building Authority (LBA) has a budget of $95,175. The LBA exists to satisfy state law concerning the operation of municipal buildings. The LBA account handles the bond payments on the Contoy Arena and the Aquatic Center.
The city Library Fund has a budget of $137,070, up about $10,000 from last year. There were only slight changes in spending from last year.
