Jackson City Council advances projects despite budget crunch

JACKSON, Tenn. — The pandemic is causing some interesting challenges for the City of Jackson, besides pushing all of their meetings online again.

“I think with the budget shortfall and the budget crunch, this expedites our push for efficiency. It makes us get creative to figure out how we can provide those services in the most efficient way possible,” said Mayor Scott Conger.

Conger says for the most recent collections, sales tax was actually up 4% compared to last year.

“We were expecting a double digit decrease,” Conger said.

However, even budgeting conservatively, they still have some project plans. One of those is to buy new equipment for the Jackson Police Department, including a new server…

“We’re at risk of not being able to communicate with the TBI and other agencies if we don’t replace this particular server,” said Bobby Arnold, finance director for the City of Jackson.

Bullet proof vests that were expiring…

“Which is a necessity,” Conger said.

And new body cameras.

“Every officer on the street will have a camera, as opposed to every shift officer having a camera,” Conger added.

In total, this is set to cost $118,798. Conger said most of this was budgeted, and they had savings in other areas.

“To use $34,015 from our fund balance in order to complete the funding for this amendment,” Arnold said.

And they are also looking for another city engineer after Scott Chandler took a job in a different state.

“We have two engineers on staff,” Conger said. “We have several support staff members in the engineering department. They’re more than capable. We’re also contracting Kimley-Horn for those PE services, professional engineering services.”

Conger says they are also still on track to repave 34 streets in Jackson this year.

The city council also had to vote for repealing the spay and neuter ordinance again, due to a technical error the first time.