STARKVILLE – A balanced city budget next year with no tax hike means the police department will get half the cameras and new manpower it had expected.
Still, the board of aldermen plans to move forward with public hearings on a Fiscal Year 2025 budget that includes no ad valorem tax increase. The board must approve its budget by Sept. 15 in advance of the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
Ward 2 Alderwoman Sandra Sistrunk, who chairs the board’s budget committee, said aldermen entered Friday’s work session with a deficit of $227,000 between estimated revenue and planned expenditures. Instead of proposing a tax increase to fill the gap, aldermen looked to cut its expenses – among them slashing $140,000 from a planned police department camera expansion. They cut the remainder from estimated legal expenses and by delaying creating a capital improvement fund for at least another year.
“It appears, while it’s easy to say one supports something in the abstract, when the time comes to fund these programs, it gets a little harder.” Sistrunk said during Tuesday’s board meeting at City Hall. “There did not appear to be any appetite for a tax increase this year.”
Police Chief Mark Ballard asked aldermen in May to budget for 41 cameras and eight license plate readers over the next two years that would be installed in high-crime areas. That would add to 34 cameras already deployed. He also asked for two more staff members to monitor the camera feeds from the station, bringing the total from one to three personnel.
At the time, city officials estimated the cameras and readers would cost about $288,000, with half coming each of the next two years. The new staffers would cost between $70,000 and $80,000 annually.
With the balanced budget plan, the department can only afford 10 new cameras and one new staffer next year.
“This will allow us to dip our toes into the program,” Sistrunk said.
Vice Mayor Roy A. Perkins, who represents Ward 6, did not attend Friday’s work session and wasn’t satisfied with what he called Tuesday’s “band-aid” proposal. He believes the city should fund Ballard’s full recommendation, whether it meant increasing taxes or finding other places to cut.
“I’m not one to just advocate a tax increase,” Perkins said. “I have such a rich history against tax increases. … (But) we cannot compromise public safety. … There’s nothing that should be a higher priority.”
Kim Moreland, who represents Ward 1, agreed with Perkins.
“I do feel like the cameras are very vital to the town’s safety,” she said. “If we would have voted tonight for a tax increase, I would have been one of the ones (to support it). I know that is not a popular opinion, but that is how important they are.”
Ward 5 Alderman Hamp Beatty pushed back, noting that a tax increase in FY 2025 would make three in the last four years. He said the budget, as it stands, includes $622,000 for across-the-board employee pay increases to keep up with inflation.
“We’re fiduciaries of the taxpayer’s money,” Beatty said. “… We’ve added things of value, like the pay raises, that are important for our city employees. We’re trying to get the cameras … and personnel on board in the police department. It may take us two to three years to do that, but our intention is to follow through with the chief’s recommendation.”
Beatty also mentioned the budget’s projected 6.3% increase in sales tax revenue, something that could “easily” fall short, as it did in FY 2023, when the city missed its projection by almost $500,000.
After the meeting, Sistrunk admitted that projection is “aggressive,” but it is based on early returns after Cornerstone Park began hosting baseball and softball tournaments this year, as well as what she hopes will be $400,000 in additional revenue from the Triangle Crossing development, where a state tax abatement for the developer will expire in January.
Sistrunk also told The Dispatch she is one of three aldermen who supports raising taxes to pay for 20 police cameras and two new staffers this year. But she doesn’t see the votes, as only two others on the seven-member board seem to side with her.
It would take a 0.4-mill increase to ad valorem taxes, collected on real and personal property, to do that. For homeowners, that would add $4 for every $100,000 of home value to their tax bill.
Moreland is more optimistic about swinging the one vote needed to raise the funds for next year.
“I would like to think we can,” she said.
Ballard, speaking to The Dispatch after the meeting, said his department would accept the board’s decision and adjust accordingly.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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