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Final vote on city budget set for Friday
The Nevada City Council voted 5-0 to pass on first reading of a special ordinance approving the city's 2011 Municipal Budget during a special meeting at 7:15 a.m., Friday. The final reading of the budget ordinance will be held during a special council meeting Friday, Jan. 7 at 5:30 p.m., in council chambers, inside the Public Safety Building at Ash and Austin, Nevada.
The $15.9 million budget includes: $5 million for salaries and benefits; $4.4 million for supplies and services; $550,000 for capital outlay; $3.4 million for capital projects; $1.16 million for debt service and $1.45 million in inter-fund transfers.
Although the city has contracted with Alliance Water Resources to operate the city's water and sewer systems, the 2011 city budget continues to have operating budgets for city's water and sewer departments since the contract does not take effect until Feb. 1.
"We need to adopt an operating budget so we can continue to run these through January, and if there is a delay we can continue to operate them longer," JD Kehrman, city manager, told the Nevada City Council Friday morning.
"In 2011 that is what we feel it will actually cost to operate the plants. In 2012 we will see major adjustments in chemical costs," Kehrman said.
The 2011 budget also reflects a 2.5 percent cost of living raise for city employees, he told the council in response to a question from council member Brian Leonard.
"It would cost $78,000, worst case, if we went forward March 1," Kehrman said.
The exact cost to the city of a 2.5 percent cost of living raise for all city employees is unknown because of upcoming changes in the city's table of organization.
He said that a 2.5 percent cost of living increase is a little high, but it will make up for no increase last year.
Kehrman told the council that awarding merit pay increases this year would be difficult due to the changes in the structure of the organization and the lack of information to evaluate employees for merit raises. He said that recent training for supervisors has improved the necessary documentation.
"Supervisors are now giving employees more detailed reviews about how they can improve," he said.
"In the past there was no documentation about employees problems," he said.
Sherry Steward told Kehrman that there also needs to be documentation about times when employees go above and beyond what is required.
According to the table of organization included with the budget, in addition to the 17 positions that will be moved to Alliance Water Resources, there are several other positions that are being eliminated in this budget, and in some cases combined into one new position.
Kehrman said in interview last week that the city's code enforcement will undergo considerable change, with the nuisance abatement that the city had used outside contractors for, moved in-house. Now, when the city must clean up property, it will be done by city employees.
Kehrman said that of the 108 properties the city had to hire contractors to clean-up, the only five problems came from having the contractor remove things that were not supposed to be removed.
He said this should eliminate that problem and eliminate a source of liability for the city.
Kehrman also said the positions of community development director and planning assistant are being eliminated and replaced with a planning manager who's job will be schedule code enforcement, research zoning issues, update the city's zoning map and help the public engage the planning commission.
Other changes include replacing the parks administrative assistant with a recreation programer, whose job will be to development recreation programs for the city.
A police sergeant and the public works director positions are also being eliminated. The sergeant's position has been vacant for some time and is no longer needed. There may be some additional police ranks added in the future.
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