Collierville board looking for ways to serve many generations
As the Collierville Board of Mayor and Aldermen discussed on Thursday its 2019 fiscal budget, it became a matter of how to serve the town’s youngest and its oldest citizens.
Should Collierville spend $300,000 for an elaborate playground that’s part of the plans for Hinton Park on the south side of town?
Or should they satisfy the senior citizens who have asked that the gym that’s attached to the Linda Kerley Senior Center be air-conditioned at a cost of $250,000 or more?
“That place is being used tremendously and I’m getting a lot of heat myself on it,” said Alderman Tom Allen, who proposed adding the gym air conditioner to the 2019 budget.
Air-conditioning the gym at the senior center is for now budgeted for 2020. That timeline means the gym wouldn’t be cooled until the summer of 2021. The town spent $871,354 in renovations and improvements for the center, which opened in October.
And, said, Mayor Tom Joyner, the gym was never intended to be part of senior programming at the center.
“Unless something was said outside this meeting, nobody knew if it was going to put in next year or the year after. So we’re out here discussing projects that haven’t been approved,” said Alderman John Worley.
“Tom went out there and told them,” said Alderman Billy Patton, adding some levity to the meeting.
But Allen defended Collierville’s seniors.
“We’re spending $300,000 to build a playground down at Hinton Park. The seniors are as important to this town as anybody else,” Allen said.
The board doesn’t vote during work sessions, but did direct the administration to figure out a way to add air-conditioning the gym to the fiscal 2019 budget, while keeping the Hinton Park playground.
It’s this kind of shuffling that must be done as the administration attempts to present a draft budget to the board that will require a tax increase of between 20 cents and 25 cents, said James Lewellen, town administrator.
Collierville did not join several Shelby County suburban cities in raising property taxes last year.
But this year, a tax increase is inevitable.
Early budget numbers left the town with a $2 million deficit, the result of declining sales tax revenues and reductions from Hall income tax revenues, which is being phased out by the state of Tennessee.
Talks had put the tax increase as high as 31 cents per $100 of assessed value.
“They want it to be zero. But we’ve gotta have an increase. I’m trying to keep it as low as I can,” Lewellen said.
The administration is now itemizing cuts ahead of the next work session and Lewellen expects to present the board with a draft budget by early May.
Also on Thursday, the board shifted water and sewer projects for the town and discussed drainage priorities.
And, after a lengthy discussion on the drainage problems for a single homeowner that could potentially cost Collierville more than $350,000 to fix, the board talked of plans to study when an individual’s problems with drainage are the taxpayers’ responsibility to fix.