Petal Mayor Hal Marx has followed through on his plan to veto the recently-passed Fiscal Year 2020 budget – as well as the recent increase to monthly water rates – setting up a meeting at 6 p.m. Sept. 23 at Petal City Hall during which the Petal Board of Aldermen will decide whether to override the vetoes.
After Marx vetoed the measures during Tuesday’s board meeting, aldermen voted 5-2 to set up the upcoming meeting, with Ward 4 Aldermen Brad Amacker and Ward 5 Alderman Tony Ducker providing the votes against the matter. The $8.607 million budget was approved Sept. 10 by a 5-2 vote – with Amacker and Ducker voting against the measure – but Marx said immediately after the vote that he would bring a veto against it.
On Tuesday, Marx said the current budget is setting the city up for failure in Fiscal Year 2021 and beyond, because it exceeds the $8 million budget suggested by financial consultant Doug King and city clerk Melissa Martin. The mayor said the budget also relies on one-time monies that will not be available next year, including $300,000 in revenue from a bond fund and a $100,000 sports donation from Forrest County District 3 Supervisor Burkett Ross.
“By approving this budget, I believe the majority of the board of aldermen are sacrificing our ability next year to give raises to any of our employees, even to our police officers,” Marx said. “In fact, this board refused to even remove $20,000 in overtime from the recreation department budget in order to give our police officers a very modest raise in this coming fiscal year.
“This budget also cuts dental insurance from our employees, but keeps money for a trip to the (Mississippi Municipal League) on the Coast next summer. I believe we can all do without attending MML in the coming year and bank that money.”
Although the current budget keeps the recreation and athletic departments intact and maintains the city’s partnership with the Petal Sports Association – in which the Petal Athletics Office was created and placed under the jurisdiction of the Parks and Recreation Department – a few jobs in recreational maintenance have been reduced. In addition, the athletic department and the recreation department are now under a single director.
Recently, Petal officials decided they could no longer maintain the ball fields near the Petal Family Branch YMCA within the city’s budget. Marx said although the PSA hosts games at those parks, for the past couple years the city has shouldered the financial responsibility, which has become no longer feasible.
“To make the numbers work, the majority of the aldermen favored bumping up revenue projections to fit the needs of the budget, rather than going with the original, more conservative estimates used by Doug King and Melissa Martin,” Marx said. “Instead of cutting our spending estimates to match our revenue, the majority of the board increased revenue estimates to match the spending necessary to continue the field prep and maintenance desired by the PSA.
“No effort was made to sit down and decide how a new arrangement could work, perhaps by using fewer fields, or by PSA paying for groundskeepers from the $100,000 they usually pay the city. It was an all or nothing approach.”
In closing, Marx asked the board to sustain the veto at next week’s meeting.
“We need to make the tough cuts this year in order to have a better chance to balance our budget in 2021, without a tax increase,” he said. “The budget prepared by Doug King and Melissa Martin is not perfect, but it is more conservative and closer to reality than the one before you today.
“For the best opportunity to grow our city and maintain our needed services without having to ask even more from our taxpayers, I urge you to sustain this veto and adopt the original budget presented by Doug and Melissa. Public safety and infrastructure should be our priorities, not services for which there are legitimate alternatives.”
On the matter of the 25-cent-per-month water rate increase that was recently passed, Marx said he vetoed the measure because of the arbitrary way the increase was decided. That increase passed 6-1 on Sept. 10, with Ducker providing the sole vote against the measure.
“There was no discussion, nor any real study as to the impact the rate increase will have on water revenue,” Marx said. “A figure was simply tossed out by one board member, with the others nodding in agreement.
“The 25-cent increase will not generate enough revenue to be of substantial benefit to the city of Petal. It will only serve to take more money from our citizens, who were hit with a larger increase in overall water and sewer rates just one year ago.”
Because the Petal Board of Aldermen has seven members, five members – a two-thirds majority – must vote against the veto to override it.
