SELMA — City council members will discuss the upcoming fiscal year’s budget in a work session Thursday.

This is the first time the council has publicly discussed the budget, although council members have had a copy for more than a week.

“I don’t know that we’re ready to pass anything,” said the Rev. Dr. Cecil Williamson of Ward 1. “We just received this.”

The work session will begin at 4 p.m in council chambers.

Thursday is the beginning of the new fiscal year for the city.

Mayor George Evans said the proposed budget is “a work in progress.”

He said he returned the 12.5 percent pay endured by city employees during the last fiscal year, which ends Wednesday.

But about $250,000 worth of items in the budget are contingent on passage of the $12 million bond issue on Oct. 27.

“It is a balanced budget as long as the bond issue passes,” Evans said. “If it doesn’t we’ll have to come back and look at some other things.”