By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Del Rio City Council members have scheduled a special workshop on the city’s proposed Fiscal Year 2023-2024 budget, as some members say they still have questions about planned employee raises and department needs.
The special workshop session will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday in council chambers at City Hall, 109 W. Broadway St. The meeting is open to the public.
The workshop session was discussed at the end of a special city council meeting on Tuesday, which was held for legally required public hearings on the proposed city budget and tax rate.
Just before he adjourned Tuesday’s meeting, Mayor Al Arreola asked City Manager John Sheedy if there would be another budget session before the planned approval of the city’s proposed Fiscal Year 2023-2024 budget.
“This (tonight) was your public hearing and next Tuesday (Sept. 12) will be the meeting to adopt the budget and the tax rate,” City Finance Director Alberta Barrett replied.
“Can we have (another meeting before that), because I think some of us have questions?” Arreola asked.
“We talked about certain things we wanted to see for salaries, as far as the hourly rates, and we came out with a 7 percent (pay increase) down the board, but we wanted, at least myself, I (want to ask) about a 9 percent increase for some and a 4 percent or 5 percent for others, and I thought this was the actual session where we were going to be discussing (that),” the mayor added.
The mayor also said he has seen the budget in other cities presented in a round-table setting “with all the directors and feedback from our citizens.” He also said the budget could also be presented in town hall-style forums like those regularly hosted by Councilman Jim DeReus and Councilwoman Alexandra Falcon Calderon.
“They go out there and they talk to the people, ‘What are your needs?’ And then they bring them to the table, bring them to you all, so they can be brought up. Last year’s budget was presented to us, and we went ahead and approved it. This year seems the same cycle, which is putting (the budget) on the table and letting us make a decision, based on what we understood from this book,” Arreola said.
Calderon commented this is her second budget cycle as a member of the council.
She said she has asked “numerous times” about why the budget cycle was started late this year.
“We lost a lot of time. We never met but just that one time. I don’t know what was the reason for that, but if we have to do a special meeting, then we do a special meeting, because there are a lot of questions that are still, from my part. We did not have meetings like we normally have, usually in June or July,” she said.
Sheedy asked Barrett how many more times the council met last year to discuss the budget, and Barrett replied last year, she “went through more of the process” to review the city’s fixed assets and capital improvement projects with council members, a process that took more time.
“This year we pretty much have a handle on (those),” she said.
Barrett said this year, the budget cycle was started with individual meetings with each member of the council.
“Then we also had input from all departments and divisions, had our individual meetings with them internally to come up with their departmental numbers,” Barrett said.
Calderon asked how the council was to know what each department needed, and Sheedy said administrators met with each department.
“I want more time. I need another meeting,” Calderon said.
“We’ll have as many meetings as we need until council is comfortable,” Sheedy said, adding different councils do their budget processes differently.
Arreola said he simply wants to make sure that city employees “who deserve a little more, get a little more.”
The mayor added he definitely wanted another workshop before considering approval of the proposed budget on Tuesday.
Sheedy cautioned the council that city staff has worked hard on the budget presented and reminded members, “As far as on salaries, we have worked very, very hard to make that work and we have to be very careful because next year we are going to have probably the most expensive that we’ve had for police and fire. We’ve already kind of committed to police and fire (next year).”
Arreola said he would like to see projections for a 10 percent increase for hourly-wage employees.
After additional discussion, the council agreed to meet Saturday afternoon.
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