City’s budget is $7.5 million

The budget approved by the Pea Ridge City Council increased to $7,565,665 from $7,141,544 in 2016.

Budget requests from department heads presented at the City Council Committee of the Whole were trimmed.

“I really believe this is a budget we can work with,” Sandy Button, city clerk, said. “It isn’t that much higher than last year and any that seemed a little high are items that will have to come before the council anyway for your approval … anything that is in the budget that we don’t have the money for won’t be spent.”

“It looks good to me. I trust y’all’s judgment,” Ray Easley, council member, said.

“The budgets were reworked and set within a reasonable limit,” Mayor Jackie Crabtree said, with requests pulled from several departments. “The only budgets that didn’t bring anything out of were park and library.

Budgets for 2017 in City General by department include:

City general $3,445,210 City Park $28,725 Fire Dept. $488,000 Impact fees $150,000 Library $61,830 Street Dept. $746,500 Water/Sewer Dept. $2,365,900 2016 Bond account $50,000

Individual department budgets include:

Police Dept. $1,298,620 Dog $18,000 Court $93,000 Library $55,390 In other business, the mayor told city officials he had received an appraisal from realtors of $182,000 for the old City Hall building and planned to wait until February to list it.

He told council members he had a proposal from someone to rent the building through the Christmas season for nine weeks.

“I would really like to push for retail down there for one, we need the tax money and we need to keep that part of town active,” Easley said.