Avondale Estates’ commission offered a revised draft of its 2018 budget during a Nov. 28 work session, after which Mayor Jonathan Elmore announced that the budget was very close to getting balanced
This after a mid November work session when the budget draft showed that anticipated expenditures were $361,803 higher than incoming revenue.
The revised budget was prepared and presented by Brian Fisher, a commissioner for less than two years and currently a senior vice president in the Commercial Banking Group of Servis First Bank.
An elected official preparing a city budget is not only unusual it appears contrary to the council-manager form of government. Under this system, founded in 1908, the city manager is responsible for three areas: personnel, contracting and budgeting. In recent years Avondale’s budget has been produced by City Manager Clai Brown—he’s held the position for nine years— and veteran Finance Director Ken Turner.
“I think in Avondale we are trying a lot of new things,” Elmore said. “We are trying to grow the downtown businesses district, and to do that you’ve got to spend money. The budget that Brian presented is conservative but not as conservative as Clai and Ken.”
In Fisher’s budget expenditures were lowered by $82,000, the biggest with $78,000 getting sliced off the Downtown Development Authority budget. Projected revenue was raised by $82,58.
Further budget discussions are scheduled for a commission work session 5:30 p.m., Wednesday (Dec. 6) at Avondale Estates City Hall, 21 North Avondale Plaza. The commission votes on the final budget Dec. 11.
“We’ve been trying to grow with a limited budget,” Elmore said. “What we’ve been doing hasn’t been working. The Avondale Business Association was defunct (revived in Oct. 2016), the DDA had no money (the commission began funding the DDA late last year) and the master plan was collecting dust.
“That’s not a knock on anybody,” he added. “But we have to change things, shake things up.”
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