City Seeks To Add New Firefighters, Police Officer

“There’s not going to be any Taj Mahal departments.”

Ernie Penn Farmington Mayor

The Farmington Fire Department will add two new firefighter positions and the Police Department will add a new officer, according to the city’s proposed 2018 budget.

The City Council held a work session last week to go through the proposed budget but only three out of eight council members attended the meeting. City department heads were on hand to answer any questions about their requests.

Elected officials now have their own city of Farmington emails and meeting reminders were sent to those email addresses. Apparently, not everyone is accustomed yet to checking their city inboxes so some did not receive the reminder.

City business manager Melissa McCarville said she sent out new emails the next morning to invite council members to pick up a copy of the proposed budget and ask questions.

The proposed budget will be on the council’s Nov. 13 agenda.

The city is projecting revenue to increase about 13 percent from $2.7 million in 2017 to $3.1 million in 2018.

The proposed 2018 budget shows $2.8 million in expenses, compared to $2.68 million budgeted for expenses in 2017.

The city is in excellent financial shape, Mayor Ernie Penn told

those at the meeting. The city has $3.2 million in its reserve account, $700,000 in the general fund and $700,000 in the street fund.

“Our city budgets low on revenues and stabilizes expenses,” Penn said, adding, “There’s not going to be any Taj Mahal departments.”

For revenue, the city is expecting its largest amounts to come from the city sales tax and the county sales tax. The city projects to receive $850,000 from city sales tax collections and about $1 million from the county sales tax in 2018.

Penn explained to those at the work session how the city’s local sales tax collections will work in 2018.

The city currently collects a 1-percent sales tax for the general fund, of which one-fourth of the penny is allocated to the street fund. For 2018, all of the revenue from this tax will go into the general fund, instead of sharing some of the proceeds with the street department. Penn said he believes the street department was having financial difficulties years ago when the decision was made to give some of the sales tax proceeds to the street fund.

The city previously collected another 1-percent sales tax for debt service on a 2007 bond issue, which was set to expire at the end of September.

In June, voters approved a request from the city for a new 1-percent sales tax to replace the one going off the books. One-half of the revenue from the new tax will be used to pay off new bond issues for park and street improvements. The other half of the 1-percent sales tax will go into the general fund as new revenue for maintenance and operation expenses.

Penn said the city’s 1-percent sales tax brings in about $64,000 per month.

The budget shows that other revenue for 2018 will be $415,000 from county turnback funds from property taxes, $375,000 from franchise fees, $100,000 from court fines and $100,000 from state turnback funds, based on per capita.

The proposed budget shows the following expenses for city departments with the general fund: police, $1 million; administrative, $813,250; fire, $400,000; parks, $260,000; law enforcement/ district court, $116,000; building permits, $91,000; animal control, $81,000.

Most departments have a budget that is less than the amount budgeted for 2017. The ones requesting more money are police, fire and parks departments and sports complex.

Fire Chief Mark Cunningham told council members the two new firefighter positions will allow him to have at least one firefighter at the station 24 hours/7 days a week. His goal, Cunningham said, is to have two firefighters at the station 24/7.

For the street fund, the city expects to receive about $598,000 in revenue and spend about $553,000 in expenses.

The public library’s proposed 2018 budget is $205,000. The library receives most of its money, $171,000, from Washington County Library System. Another $30,000 comes from the city’s general fund.