Balanced budget one vote away from passage

Staff acknowledged for 'much better process' 

Simpsonville, S.C. — The proposed balanced budget for the City of Simpsonville cleared another hurdle on Tuesday when Simpsonville City Council voted unanimously to approve first reading of the budget ordinance.

City Council voted 7-0 to advance to a second reading Ordinance 2021-05, which is the budget draft for fiscal year 2021-2022. If approved by a simple majority of Council upon second reading at the June business meeting, the proposed budget would take effect July 1.

"We are presenting you with a balanced budget," City Administrator Dianna Gracely told Council. "That includes no tax increase, no fee increase."

In a brief follow up to her budget presentation at the last Council meeting, Gracely hit the high points of the budget, a document that fully funds City operations and infrastructure, invests in the Public Works Department and ensures the City remains competitive as an employer.

Councilmember Jenn Hulehan of Ward 3 said the budget addresses long-term priorities that Council has supported for years.

"In 2016, we were a little horrified by the lack of planning for long-term capital purchases that put us into some difficult situations where we had to make hard choices," Hulehan said. "To know that we have now gotten into a much better place financially and have prepared better for the future so that we will have this fund and that future councils will not be presented with those same issues is a really good feeling for me personally as a member of council."

When Hulehan and several other current Council members assumed their seats in 2016, the Public Works Department was underfunded, which led to awarding a 5-year contract to a third-party vendor for sanitation services out of necessity. The proposed budget creates a Public Works enterprise fund partially funded by the Public Works fee increase three years ago that makes in-house sanitation service possible.

Gracely said the budget is "forging new ground" with the Public Works enterprise fund.

"There is now an operating budget for the Public Works enterprise fund because we'll be hiring staff to take over sanitation services for the City, so we'll be able to do that in-house," Gracely said. 

Council voted in April to return sanitation services back to the Public Works Department after the vendor contract ends in September. The enterprise fund pays for seven new sanitation personnel, which include CDL drivers for the garbage trucks and general laborers.

A final budget is the result of hours and hours of staff time spent pouring over projected figures for revenues and expenditures and requests from department heads while reconciling priorities set by Council and available funding. Councilman Matthew Gooch of Ward 1 thanked Gracely and Finance Department staff for listening to Council and creating a process that is "no longer onerous and hard and daunting."

"It used to be truly horrible," Gooch said, referring to the budget process before Gracely became city administrator. "When you came on board, it really changed a lot, and it has been a much better process. "It may be tougher on you guys, but you really present it to us in a way that is much more digestible than it used to be." 

Gracely said that she could not provide a balanced budget without City Hall staff.

"I do want to take the opportunity to … thank Christine Furino, our Finance director, who does an amazing job helping me put the budget together," Gracely said.

Council emphasized at the meeting that the proposed budget includes no tax increases or fee increases. Hulehan said the public may assume an increase in taxes due to the number of projects happening in the City.

“Every day I hear from people who live here and visit here and look around and talk about the amazing things happening in this city, and you might look around and think, ‘Wow, this must be costing us a pretty penny. I bet they’re going to increasing their taxes,'" Hulehan said. "Are we increasing anyone’s taxes?”

“We are not," Gracely answered.

Council is expected to consider second reading of the budget ordinance at the next business meeting on June 8 after holding its next Committee of the Whole meeting on May 25.