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Google"It's time to stop spending money that's not in the budget, period," council member Al Stephenson said, rasing his voice. "We can't afford to do it!"
The statements came after city manager Ed Craig gave the council a rundown of the final figures from last year's budget.
"We keep this up, we're not going to have any funds to take any money out of," he said. "Where are we going to get the money for more funds?"
Continuing to raise his voice, Stephenson said "we can't keep spending money the way we have ...it's got to stop somewhere."
Seconds later, Stephenson apologized for rasing his voice, but added that the situation with the city's finances makes him angry.
Craig told the council that the bad news was that last year, the city "went in the hole" at a total of $581,358. To cover that, the city will cover the shortage with money from the city's capital fund and some cash from the storm water fund.
But the good news is that revenues were only $61,421 under the nearly $12 million budgeted for 2008-09, which Craig called "pretty close," and expenditures were $28,817 "to the good."
Last year, the city had budgeted a deficit of $565,822 and ended up with a deficit of $598,427, leaving Shelbyville $32,604 over budget.
"We did good with budgeting, but bad by the fact that we lost that much cash" from unexpected expenses, Craig said, such as the demolition of two buildings on East Depot Street and the collapse of the city's underground storm water flume under North Main Street.
Craig added that these funds will hopefully be recovered. The city is currently ready to file a lawsuit against the owner of the condemned property on Depot Street to recover $222,280 spent on the demolition.
A public hearing on those costs is scheduled to be held Thursday at 6 p.m. at the city hall annex.
The city is also looking at action to recover funds spent on repairing the flume after an engineer's report stated that work done by a contractor for Shelbyville Power was responsible for the flume's failure, but Craig said the money for that repair came from a different fund and did not impact the budget.
Shelbyville is currently out some $330,000 for the flume repair, Craig said.
Craig also said the city is closely monitoring expenses to keep them at the lowest level possible.
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that's it, .... come ed .... pull another rabbit out of the hat and smooth it over.... put the blinders on the people of Shelbyville and tell them how good you are... in like the law suite with mr williams.. and tearing down that building... you might have some of the city council fool like kay and joanne but you don't have them all fooled... one day they will catch on to you and your ways ... and yes i know some of your bleeding hearts think ed is the best thing since a slice of bread... but i telling you folks he is going to break the city... and i know a lot of you don't like those other two... but we got to stop spending money... times are hard and ed ... and that white elephant ... ed and that lady that runs the rec center... she got to have this and that... get rid of ed and her and fire some of those people out the rec center that stand around and do nothing but walk over each over and when you ask them something they say hang on a few mins...... i'm busy...
Looks like somebody needs typing lessons!
One way to save would be to fire Ed Craig and eliminate his salary. How much has he cost the city so far?
I know for a fact that the city hired some police officers that they have to send to the academy that cost like $6000 a piece, and there is already at least 4 people in town that have already been through the academy and are cerified that can't even get a job with this police dept. because they don't know the right people or are not kin to the city council. It's sad to say, but the city needs to re-think the way they run this town, and we as a community need to make sure that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing, or get them out and put people in there that will. They could save the city lots of money by hiring those that are already cerified in the police field, instead they chose to hire people that are not, what kind of sense does that make???
That the way to go "Mr. Stephenson," tell them like it is. If they keep going like they are, Shelbyville, going to be a Ghost Town. Look at have many building setting around, where the business has close and left town. Or couldn't keep the doors open. Then look at all the people that don't have JOBS. Mr. Craig has a nice home to go to, and bed to sleep in. While some of the people don't have any place, because they lost there homes or couldn't afford to pay the rent. Wonder if he sleep well at night??
Most of the people working for the city are kin, or good friends. That the way they got there jobs. But if the people of Shelbyville would open there eyes and watch some of the employee's they see what kind of work they do. It not hard because some of the people don't know what a hard day at work would be. Even Mr. Craig could hold out to work for the city, because all I see them doing is rideing around sleeping and maybe picking up some paper. They have got so good that they can ride down the side of the road and used on of those "Gopher" that used for handicapped people that can't been down or reach up from a wheel chair. Now that what I called lazy. Wonder if Mr. Clanton know that. Ups!! He does now if read this section of the paper on the computer.
Well I hope the people open there eyes before it to late.
I would like to see a specific list of all the non-budgeted items for the last year. If we, the tax payers, are paying for it then we need to see where our money went.
Geez if you want to reduce the budget someone needs to look at how bids are accepted to do repairs on the city vehicles. Word on the street says that the highest bid is being paid not the lowest bid. It is all who you know. If we could get that system "FAIR" that would be a good start.
Sorry Sad Mom. There wont be much use of the word fair in this country anymore, which also makes me a sad mom.
Who in the world would pay 228,000 for demolition
of a property on Belmont???!!! I wish they could have paid my husband for that job. He would have done it for 30,000. That is a bit much for a tear down dont ya think??
The problem with anything that gets done in this town and others is they have to pay engineers to do studies to tell them which is the best way to do the job but not always turns out to be the right choice, this usually turns a $30,000 dollar job into a $120,000 or more job.
I think we, the tax-payers of this town, should just get rid of the ones in the city council and the city manager and get some good ole country folks in there that knows about having to live on a budget, that knows what it's like to have to do with-out this and that, and maybe we might get somewhere. And to the City Manager and City Council and anyone else that has ANYTHING to do with the hiring in this town, STOP HIRING PEOPLE BECAUSE YOU KNOW THEM AND HIRE THE PERSON THAT'S QUALIFIED FOR THOSE JOBS. And remember, that we, the people of this town, put you in that position, and we can surely get you out of it.
Actually, City Council is fine. They are diverse.
My mind starts to hurt after I read a few of these blogs. Does anyone understand how to freaking complete a sentence or spell anymore?
All of you have the ability to spell check and use word processing on you computers before you post.
Many of you have good thoughts; however I find my mind going numb after reading your first few attempts at sentences.