With one little tweak, Huntsville city council approves 2022 budget

The Huntsville city council approved its budgets Thursday for the 2022 fiscal year after receiving the one request it wanted: More money for road resurfacing.

In fact, that was the only point of gentle protest from the council as it reviewed the budget proposed by Mayor Tommy Battle’s administration in passing the $249 million general fund budget as well as two capital improvement plans.

The administration upped its allotted funds for road resurfacing by $1 million on Thursday – raising it to a total of $14.5 million – and the city council responded with statements of appreciation and gave its OK after getting the one tweak it wanted.

It was a somewhat extraordinary budget, given that it included $80 million for a new city hall as well as $1 million for Huntsville City Schools to build a new central office on North Memorial Parkway. Those items had already been approved by the council but the 2022 budget puts it into action.

It also included a 3 percent cost of living adjustment for all employees – the largest such raise in Battle’s 13 years as mayor.

“Everyone brought their ideas to the table,” councilman Bill Kling said. “The mayor brought us a very good foundation to work with and I think there’s a lot of good things that are going to take care of what we already have. I know we’re looking at expanding and planning and future growth but I do see a lot of good things in here that take care of what we already have and I think this has been a very good teamwork approach. This is what local government is all about when everybody can come to the table and bring their best ideas.”

The administration massaged the 1990 Capital Improvement Plan – which provides funding for road resurfacing among other things – to meet the council’s demand for more money than was originally budgeted for roads.

The extra $1 million that was added to the budget for roads raised the total to $14.5 million. That represented a 23 percent increase over the resurfacing budget in the 2021 budget and fell in line with what Public Works Director Chris McNeese told the council was doable from the perspective of actually getting the money spent.

City officials have said that the amount of money budgeted for road resurfacing is only as good as how much can be spent by having available paving crews to perform the work.

City Administrator John Hamilton said the extra $1 million was added from revenue projections over the next 10 years of the 1990 Capital Improvement Plan and that no funding from another project was robbed to pay for extra resurfacing money.

“The capital plan is a 10-year model so I was able to make some adjustments without taking anything away from the current year projects,” Hamilton said. “It sort of feathers itself out over the 10 years. The next nine years makes some pretty conservative revenue assumptions.

“It’s nice to have a 10-year plan so you can see and have a general idea where you’re going. As far as what’s actually getting executed, this next year is really what matters.”

Hamilton said he believed that the city would be able to spend the $14.5 million on resurfacing in the next fiscal year but noted it’s a rolling project that never ends. Also at the city council meeting Thursday, the council approved more than $5.3 million for the second phase of resurfacing in the 2021 fiscal year budget that ends next week.

Altogether, the council expressed their satisfaction with the budget and Battle said the process was “not contentious” this year.

“I would suggest the reason it has come together so well is because of the recommendation of the finance committee that we have a work session in advance,” Council President Jennie Robinson said. “We’ve never done that before. That August work session where we were able to give input on where we each were coming from so there were no surprises for the administration and we weren’t sort of duking it out over things has made this process go much smoother.”

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