Abercrombie’s budget focuses on city employees

The Henderson City Council held their annual budget workshop Thursday evening. The group consisted of Mayor Buzz Fullen, the city council, the city’s department heads and Jay Abercrombie, City Manager who led the budget workshop.

Ever since Abercrombie arrived in town approximately three years ago it’s been obvious that his main goal was to take Henderson into the twenty first century. This has been evident with all the technology, city upgrades, multiple other changes and the investment he has made in the City’s employees.

At the beginning of the meeting Abercrombie passed out a single sheet for the group to follow as he gave a breakdown on the fund spent so far from the American Rescue Plan (ARP). One of the purposes of President’s Joe Biden’s ARP was to provide emergency grants, lending and investment to hard-hit small businesses so they can rehire and retain workers. 

Earlier this year Abercrombie requested from the Council permission to use some of the APR funds to help the City’s employees when inflation rose higher than ever before. They granted him the request.

Thursday night another request was made but this time in the form of the 2022/2023 budget.

“We have some good people we must take care of them,” Abercrombie said.

Most of the increases in the new budget was on increases for existing employees and potential new employees, especially for the Police Department since they are struggling to get applicants for much needed positions.

Abercrombie told the group, “About ninety-five percent of employees will receive a ten-percent pay increase with a five-percent increase for all department heads.”

This increase will take effect during the next budget year which starts in October and only if the Council approves the proposed budget after the citizens first have a chance to inspect it during an opportunity for public inspection should they choose.

Other areas where the budget was increased was with the new location of the City Hall and it’s remodeling as well as water and wastewater infrastructure which were taken from the ARP funds.

“We spent $290,000 on the new building remodeling with most of the expenses going to materials and labor provided by City employees,” Abercrombie said.

According to Abercrombie most of the supplies were bought local and what outside labor was done was done by local people.

He also told the group that city sales tax is predicted to climb. Also, the Ad Valorem Tax on all real property was raised by the state at an increase of 15 per cent. According to the preliminary budget numbers revenue for the city the year should reach $16,156,712.

The next step will be for the Council to look over the proposed budget between now a Council meeting when it’s placed on the Council Agenda for approval or not before October 2022.