12/22/2009 Commissioners Meeting

This meeting was about 2 hours 45 minutes long. There again was a lot of discussion it seemed about possible budget short falls in several topics that were discussed.

One of the first items on the agenda was to approve a lease/purchase agreement for a 2010 Ford F-150 truck. It seemed as they read through the “lease agreement language it really didn’t specifically mention the truck the city was to lease/purchase” commissioner Galbraith stated. The City Attorney questioned some tax language in the agreement. After a short discussion city officials decided to postpone the lease/purchase of the truck

Next on the agenda was the approval of a Holiday Gift Card for all city employees. Commissioner Fryman question why a gift card instead of just money. Fryman stated “a gift card limited how each employee could spend it” He pointed out with money they had a better choice as to what they would use it for. All city officials voted yes to give cash instead of a gift card. It was stated that the city had 120 full time employees, each to receive $100.00 cash. It was also stated city had 30 part-time employees, each to receive $50.00 cash.

Next all city officials voted yes to promote city employee Mr. Sexton to Electric Superintendent. It was stated his hourly wage would be 27.50 per hour.

Next item was a hot issue on the agenda. It was about Paris Police Officers taking police cruisers home with them when they are off duty. This is were things began to heat up because of the budget information provided to the commissioners and mayor by the city manager and acting police chief.

Commissioner Galbraith stated “they presented a lot of information in the reports, but no where does he see the same number twice. There needs to be hard numbers to be able to make a decision one way or the other he stated.”

Commissioner Horn expressed concern there was no inventory system in place to track police vehicles the city owned.

Commissioner Fryman stated “he felt there was mis-management going on in the police dept”.

Mayor Thornton was critical about several things in the report. He pointed out he was told they were paying insurance on 44 vehicles instead of 33 stated in report. He stated the number of vehicles keeps changing for home fleet from 6 then 11 and now 14? What is going on? The mayor also pointed out that since 2005 until now the Police Dept budget has double from about $1,000,000 in 2005 and it is over $2,000,000.00 now. The mayor stated “were is the money going.” The mayor stated “how can we tell the people of Paris that gross revenues have gone down 9% but the Police Budget increased 72% ??

I should point out that about 4 citizens were allowed to make public comment on the Home-fleet issue. All who spoke were in favor of the police officers taking the cruisers home with them
A motion was voted on to keep the home fleet for about 3 more months until more research on the matter can be done and presented again to the city officials. The vote was 4 to 1 to keep the home fleet for now. Mayor Thornton was the lone no vote.

Several others issue were discussed related to the budget that I will comment on in my next post very soon.

Until next time,.