Baldwin City Council will debut their spending plan during tonight’s regular meeting. At present, the city expects to spend $2,042,228 in the next fiscal year which begins on July 1.
“This is what I’ve pulled together from what they’ve (city department heads) requested and what we’ve projected as revenues,” explains Baldwin Finance director Kym Smith. “The department heads will all tell you that I’ve nitpicked them on everything.”
She says it’s a very conservative budget mainly because the county tax digest isn’t done yet and they don’t actually know how much tax money they’ll have to spend next year. “We are just going on the current year’s digest,” Smith says. “I’m hoping, when the digest is ready, there were some assessments that went up. That would be a bonus but, until I see it, I’m not going to put it down.”
Smith, for the most part, kept spending levels for the City of Baldwin right where they are now, “The only department that I can think of that has a significant increase is the Police Department and part of that is to add some personnel and part of it is to give rank to some officers,” Smith says.
The budget will get its first reading during tonight’s Baldwin City Council meeting but there is still work to be done before the final document will be ready for a vote at the end of next month.
Baldwin City Council meets tonight in the Municipal Courtroom at the Police Department, 155 Willingham Ave at 6:30PM.
