Parks, flooding and finances were the dominant topics during Shelby’s city council meeting Monday night. The vice president of the Shelby park board, Dave Keinath, addressed council on progress in Seltzer Park. Mayor Marilyn John gave an update regarding last week’s flooding. And Director of Finance, Robert Lafferty, made note of serious concerns in the general fund of Shelby.
During the meeting Director of Finance Robert Lafferty updated the council with budget concerns.
“We’ve had some serious problems in our general fund. Last week we had a $41,000 balance in the general fund and we have payroll this week which is about $97,000,” said Lafferty.
“We’ve taken some serious losses in the general fund with the state cutting back our local government by 50 percent. We are in pretty bad shape in the general fund,” said Lafferty. Lafferty proposed an increase in administrative costs to funded areas from two to four percent. With a two percent cost, the annual income was about $420,000 a year with almost $35,000 circulating monthly. With the four percent increase, the annual income will be about $840,000 annually with $70,000 coming in monthly.
Emergency ordinances were passed in order to transfer money in the general fund. Lafferty said, “I think this will keep us in the green this year.”
Councilmen Garland John Gates added, “We have no choice, we must transfer money. The cities are taking cuts. This is the bitter fruit we must eat.”
Beyond the financial concerns, reports on local event and the parks were more promising.
Keinath said, “The financial update on the snack bar looks like it will be a fair revenue. We have seen some increase there and we are happy with it.” Park labor has risen from last year, but Keinath explained that more time was spent getting ready for the beginning of summer.
He described summer events that had taken place in the park. “The science fair was put on by Rob and Nichole Putnam and they did an excellent job with it. It was great to get the kids involved with that aspect of the park,” said Keinath. Seltzer Pool held a community swim night last week and there were 90 participants that attended. Keinath said, “It was successful and we will be doing that again.”
Mayor John also made note of recent events in Shelby since the prior council meeting on July 1. “Bicycle Days was a success, despite some of the raindrops. The parade was great and the fireworks went off great. We have already developed a committee for next year’s Bicycle Days,” said John.
“We went straight from the festival into a busy week of rain and overall I feel the events that went on last week went as smoothly as they could. I appreciate all the work from the utility, police, and fire departments,” she added.
