Jackson Budget Committee seeks to borrow money to cover additional costs

JACKSON, Tenn. — At the last Jackson City Council meeting, the council voted to send the proposed budget back to the budget committee.

Their plan was to look over the budget, and come up with a recommendation for the city council, however the meeting was primarily focused on spending the proposed almost $99 million dollars.

After some deliberation, there were a few options the committee had:

• Cut expenses in order to cover the deficit, and fund other items, like road paving for example.
• Pull more money from the fund balance, or rainy day fund, in order to accomplish those same things.
• Raise taxes to increase funding.
• Borrow more money and issue roughly $12 million worth of bonds to cover additional costs for projects and items like more new police vehicles.

The committee decided to recommend the last option.

Some of the council members in attendance, who are not on the budget committee, still have concerns.

“It is a city’s responsibility to make sure safety, and then to get people to and from where they need to be, in a safe manner. So I have concerns about our ability to address our infrastructure needs,” said Marda Wallace, city council member.

Councilman Johnny Dodd is in favor of funding these various things. However, he is concerned that the city should go with a different option to set them up for the future.

“I want to look at morale for our employees, I want to fix the roads. And even if you are talking about raising taxes to be able to fix roads, if you tell me you’re going to fix my road and I can see where my money is going, I’m going to understand that better,” said Dodd.

So, as it stands now, the budget committee intends to recommend to the city council to approve the current budget, and then taking on more debt to fund other items.

The city council will meet Tuesday, July 2nd, in the Jackson City Hall at 9 a.m.

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