Friday's Internet Edition, July 03, 2009.
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Uncertain financial times and a looming budget, however, have forced the council to pull back the reigns a bit when it comes to handing out taxpayer money. At Tuesday’s monthly meeting, the council voted unanimously to curtail any future donations that are not in the best interest of the community as a whole.
“My concerns are extremely justifiable,” Mayor Allen Todd said. “The major concern all municipalities have at this time is their budget. Nobody knows what their revenues are going to be. The state of North Carolina, at this time, is looking at cutting everything they can possibly cut, money wise. There are a lot of questions on the table right now. We have no guarantee of x amount of dollars coming in next year.”
The votes comes a month after a new local legion baseball team — Post 294 — requested assistance from the council to help pay for expenses. Since then, Todd said he has received other requests for money and donations that are not line items in the budget. Swaim told the council that the economic atmosphere simply doesn’t lend itself to unbudgeted spending at this time.
“One of the first concerns I have is that these are not budgeted line items that we considered in our last budget,” Swaim said. “I’m very much a supporter of athletic teams in this area. I have a concern about an individual team. We have to be careful of what we support with taxpayer dollars needs to benefit a majority of the community and not one specific team.”
Council member Steve Yokeley agreed and said that he didn’t feel taxpayer money should be used to sponsor one team. He was in favor of contributing money to a booster club instead. Council member Gary Craver added that while he plans to give a personal donation to the team he isn’t willing to offer up town money, saying “it will never end.”
“With things the way they are, we need to be careful with how we spend money,” Yokeley said. “We don’t know how much money we’ll be taking in next year.”
Swaim did say that if the council wanted to set up a line item for situations like this in next year’s budget that it could be done. Swaim said the town’s finances are in good shape right now and that there may be room for such expenditures in the future.
In other news:
• The council is looking for two alternates to serve on the Board of Adjustment. An application for the position will be posted on the town’s website.
• Council members voted to award Allred & Carrick Co. the town’s audit contract for $5,000 a year, which is an increase of $500 from 2008.
Staff Writer Eliot Duke can be reached at 888-3578, or at duke@tvilletimes.com.