Summerton holds 1st reading of budget

By ROBERT BAKER
Item Staff Writer
bbaker@theitem.com

SUMMERTON — The town of Summerton will spend about $1,140,918 during the 2009-10 fiscal year, according to first reading of the new budget that was held Tuesday during a regular meeting of Summerton Town Council.

Originally planning for the town to generate about $1,079,420 in revenue and expenses during the next fiscal year, council’s updated budget is about $347,000 lower than its 2008-09 budget.

“Our revenue is down from what we expected last year,” said town Administrator Bruce Behrens in April after council held a budget workshop.

Behrens said that cuts will be felt by most town departments: administration, particularly, will be hardest hit, spending $185,401 in 2009-10 as opposed to the $294,657 slated for the department in 2008-09.

“Basically what that shows is the lack of any capital projects,” he said. “We don’t have any capital projects planned for this year because we don’t have the funds. So, we don’t have those expenses planned.”

In last year’s budget, council planned for $56,139 and $38,700 for the town’s capital reserve fund and its capital projects fund, respectively.

“Those projects included the streetscaping and the renovation of Railroad Avenue,” he said. “We don’t have anything like that planned for this year.”

Likewise, the Summerton Police Department will see a drop in expenditures, dropping to $751,921 for 2009-10 from $966,117 for 2008-09.

“Well, we dropped about $25,000 in salary alone, and I don’t think we’re funding the number of officers that we were funding last year,” Behrens said. “In a lot of areas, employee insurance also dropped from $61,000 to $41,000. Workers’ compensation (insurance) dropped from $35,000 to $25,000.”

Behrens said that no town employees were laid off, however.

“We haven’t had any layoffs or furloughs, but in the police department, I think we went from eight officers to six,” he said. “We’re going to stay at six right now and are not going to carry the number of officers that we have in the past.”

Behrens said he was pleased council had given the town a budget that wouldn’t see any loss of employees.

“I’m glad we’re able to retain all the employees, and the department heads have been very frugal in this year’s spending, and that shows for next year,” he said.

When council first began discussing the budget in April, the town was also looking at about a $104,000 surplus for 2008-09.

“That’s down to about $75,000 right now,” Behrens said. “That’s revenue over expenditures, and that’s very good for us.”

In the past, Behrens has said he doesn’t know if that balance will help 2009-10 budgetary matters much.

“We don’t know if we’ll carry that over because we still have some time left in this year (the fiscal year ends June 30),” Behrens said in April. “Whatever we have June 30 will be a carry-over number; it would become an unencumbered fund balance. That’s money that’s available to spend, working kind of like a savings account.”

Council will hold second reading and a public hearing on the budget at its next meeting, which will be held at 6 p.m. June 9.

“My recommendation is that we take it up at the first meeting in June so that we can handle any changes and still meet our deadline to have it passed by June 30,” said Summerton Mayor Jay Bruner.

Summerton Town Council meets regularly at 6 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at Summerton Town Hall on Main Street in Summerton.

Contact Staff Writer Robert Baker at bbaker@theitem.com or (803) 435-8511.