Valley Grande won’t touch savings

Published 11:44 pm Tuesday, March 22, 2011

VALLEY GRANDE — The agenda for the Valley Grande City Council meeting was full Monday night.

The council talked about things in the city ranging from the completion of the baseball fields on Dallas County Road 16, Founder’s Day and the Fourth of July.

The meeting also served to give the six-month financial report for the city.

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“Financially, we are in good shape,” Valley Grande Mayor Tom Lee said. “Our income is running above expectations and our big ticket items have already been spent, so the rest of the year should go fairly well.”

With most of the budgeted money allotted for the baseball fields having already been spent, the council was able to see they may not have to reach into their savings to pay for it all, which was an initial concern.

“Right now we are on target not to do that,” Lee said. “We had that [savings] put in place as a just in case, but as of right now, it looks like we aren’t going to need to. That’s huge for us to be able to keep that money.”

Lee said to date, 70 percent of the total year’s budgeted income from business licenses had already come in and the rest of the money would come from any new businesses in town.

“We are working right now in the black,” Lee said. “That’s where we want to be right now.”

One other key item that brought up was the need to make improvements to the parking at the Valley Grande walking trail.

“We have outgrown what our little walking trail can hold,” Lee said. “So right now we are planning to make improvements to the parking out there.”