THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 20, 1994 TAG: 9406200052
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940620 LENGTH: ELIZABETH CITY
The proposed budget, which includes six new police officers, two police drug investigators and two new firefighters, also calls for a 3-cent tax increase and a 2 percent merit pay raise for the city's 255 full-time employees.
{REST} The budget represents a 3.8 percent increase over 1993-94 and only a slight rise in expenditures from the $7.7 million general fund, which supports most city departments. Spending from that fund will actually be less than in the 1992-93 year, City Manager Ralph Clark said.
Overall, nearly $3 million in department requests were shut out in an effort to keep spending in line, and only about half of 27 requested new employees were approved.
``There are no luxuries in this budget,'' said Councilwoman Anita Hummer. ``The city is tightening its belt. . . . We're really trying to represent the taxpayer.''
But council members did agree to significantly expand the police force, whose time, they say, has come.
A Police Department memo to the council shows that personnel levels have remained constant over the past decade, even as violent crime in the city has mounted and enforcement actions have nearly tripled.
``If anything was going to get funded at all, it was going to be the police,'' Clark said. ``We really haven't increased our level to any substantial degree until this year.''
The city will have some help in funding the new police positions. Two will be paid for by the Elizabeth City Housing Authority in exchange for expanded services in public housing areas.
The two drug agents, meant to fill a gap left by the defunct Northeast Regional Drug Task Force, should be paid for out of confiscated drug funds, Clark said.
But some of the new spending will come out of residents' pockets.
The 3-cent tax increase, which brings city rates to 60.5 cents per $100 of property, will raise about $126,000.
Of that, $21,000 is geared specifically for continuing the Roanoke Avenue Drainage project, a long-term undertaking to control flooding in a large part of the city. The money will fund just part of the fourth phase in the project, which began in 1991.
``We didn't want that project to get stagnated and just completely halted,'' Clark said.
Other new revenue generators include increased recreation and parking fees and higher fire and building inspection fees. Sanitation fees will double to $5 a month to offset the higher cost of dumping garbage in a new regional landfill.
One concern that emerged from two months of budget talks but did not make it into the final document is the concept of better recreational facilities for young people.
Council members addressed the issue at length at a final work session Wednesday night when Councilwoman Myrtle Rivers questioned the decision not to budget for a requested $355,000 addition at the Knobbs Creek Recreation Center.
Clark's solution was to propose creating a long-term master plan of recreational goals and possible funding plans for any new structures. The idea intrigued council members, some of whom say they are growing impatient on the issue of youth activities.
``We always have priorities,'' Councilman Jimi Sutton said during the Wednesday session. ``Sooner or later, hopefully sooner, we're going to have to take youth as a priority.''
{KEYWORDS} BUDGET
by CNB