Valley Grande Council approves budget

Published 12:07 am Wednesday, October 2, 2013

VALLEY GRANDE — After two weeks of giving an upcoming budget one final close inspection, members of the Valley Grande City Council stamped the budget with their seal of approval.

During a rare Tuesday meeting, the council approved the operating budget for fiscal year 2013-2014 after some minor changes were made.

The cost of adding city clerk Janet Frasier and assistant city clerk Kim Harris to the State of Alabama’s retirement plan was slightly higher than had been previously budgeted, forcing council members to move some money from the city’s capital projects section of the budget.

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“The way the state retirement fund works going forward is the city pays 7.5 percent of their salary toward their retirement, and they pay 7.5 percent out of their salary, which is 15 percent,” Valley Grande Mayor Wayne Labbe said.

In fiscal year 2013-2014, Valley Grande will be putting $5,463 toward the two new retirement funds.

The city is also required to pay the total amount toward retirement the two clerks would have earned during the period they have already been working for the city.

Labbe said that it would be nearly two months before the amount the two are already owed is known.

“In arrears on the number of years they have been here, the city pays the entire amount. Depending on when it switched from 5 percent to 7.5 percent, that will determine how much the city owes,” Labbe said.

An additional $39,150 in the city’s checking account was listed on the budget to keep the city’s ratio of expenses-to-income where the state requires it to be.

“We have that money in our checking account and put it into our operating budget to keep us 10 percent over budgeted expenses,” Labbe said. “The reason that is there is that when this was all totaled up, we were that much over on our expenses.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, council member Jane Craig expressed interest in moving some money from the city’s checking account in to a certificate of deposit, something Labbe said the council could vote on at a later date.