Huntington City Budget session

031011-LAH-budget
The Huntington Human Relations meeting at City Hall Thursday, March 10, was cancelled. While I was in the building I saw the Huntington City budget meeting was starting so I decided to attend. During the meeting, spokesmen for the Planning Committee, IT Committee, Municipal Parking Board, Civic Arena, Insurance and the Fire Department presented their proposed budgets for the upcoming year.
The Planning Department, Civic Arena and Fire Department had the most discussion about their budgets.
The Planning Department came up with a comprehensive plan as part of their plan for economic development. The plan will be a two year process. James Baldwin with the Planning Department, proposed to put funds into the budget to pay a Graduate Student from Marshall University to intern 20 hours a week.
“What it does for them is for students interested in planning, they can offer them a graduate assistant position, so not only would I get somebody consistent 20 hours a week, but I would also have an employee at graduate level who is interested in planning,” Baldwin said.
The council argued there wasn’t enough money in this fiscal year’s budget but then decided to take $6,000 from the budget to remodel the floors in the basement of City Hall. They will put the remaining $750 from the budget in contingency. The proposed budget for the planning committee was then passed.
Brian Sipe
The Civic Arena budget proposed cutting expenses and generating revenues. General Manager, Brian Sipe said three shows at the River Park are included in the budget along with seven shows in the fall at the Arena and funds for Rib Fest. The proposed budget for the entertainment for Rib Fest is $28,000 which is an $80,000 decrease from last year.
An electrician and administrative assistant has been laid off from the Arena and Sipe proposed hiring another full-time employee.
“It would be a full time position that would book conference center and business development manager who would come up with more fairs and festivals and non concert family events that could play in Huntington,” Sipe said.
During the last budget proposal, Fire Chief, Creig Moore said he found $90,000 could be pulled from the Fire Department budget. Moore said the fire department's retiree payouts were budgeted for $250,000, but once they looked again it only came out to be $190,000. The other $30,000 in savings were due to vacant positions. This year there will be three vacant positions.
The Department has $22,000 is overtime, one-seventh of the budget is dedicated to maintenance in staffing for unscheduled overtime.
After almost an hour of debate the council voted unanimously to remove the $90,000 from the budget and put it in the street paving budget.