Whitehall Council still working to finalize budget

On Monday night the Whitehall Town Council continued to delve into the 2016-2017 town budget, which is nearing completion for the upcoming fiscal year.

Fellows reminded those in attendance at the meeting the budget will be available for anyone interested. Fellows also stated there is no money coming out of the general fund or the Ambulance, as it is its own separate account.

One of the area’s the council was looking to cut was money spent on professional services. Public Works Employee Kory Klapan said he believes the town could save about $30,000 in this area by hiring another full public works employee, which was already budgeted, and having them mainly focus on mowing and garbage.

“It should take about three days to do all the mowing per week, and the other two days could be done doing garbage,” Klapan said.

“The town as a whole is not in bad shape,” Fellows said.

Some of the extra expenses the town has this year are paying for the Whitehall Community Pool completely, and spending more than previously with the prior town attorney.

“The town provides a lot of services that we don’t make much money on,” Fellows said.

“We were getting off cheap, but more work has been done than ever before with our legal services,” Davis said.

Council members mutually agreed that they did not want to keep legal fees much higher than what was spent last year.

Fellows said criminal cases are up from last year, and after all the court and legal fees and jail if need be, they didn’t make very much.

“People in Whitehall need to behave,” Fellows joked.

Fellows had an idea to help save money in the pool fund. The Town Clerk/Treasurer plans on meeting with the Pool Committee Members and pool manager Haylee Estey to brainstorm. One idea Fellows voiced, would be to close the pool completely for two days of the week, those days depending on which are the least busy. Fellows explained it would help cut a significant portion from the wages being spent. Another idea is to have lessons and classes back to back during the week.

So far there is only about $50,000 left in budget cuts to bring it down to $460, 000; the anticipated revenue coming in, Council Member Francine Janik said as she added the numbers up.

“We will take another look, but I think we have gone about as far as we can with cuts. We may just have to take a percentage across the board and everyone will have to bite the bullet so to speak,” Davis said.

An area that has balanced out in the budget is water and sewer. After examining current meters to figure out what the meters are reading and what the actual water usage was last week, the budget was adjusted for the loss caused by a computer glitch Fellows said, and now both accounts have balanced as anticipated last week. Fellows added she plans on going over April and June to find out if the glitch caused any more problems.

Sugar Beet Row Update

Davis said Leonard Wortman informed him at the meeting held with the Jefferson County Commissioners about the Sugar Beet Row project, that he had not received the old agreement.

Davis said the County Commissioners and County Attorney’s office stated they were not prepared do to this and another meeting would be re-scheduled at a later time.