City budget approval expected week from today

Published 11:42 am Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen is expected to approve the city’s fiscal 2012 budget when it meets a week from today.

“We’ll do it our first meeting in September,” Mayor Paul Winfield said. “State law requires that we have the budget approved by Sept. 15.”

The Warren County Board of Supervisors also is expected to meet next Tuesday to hold a public hearing on the county’s proposed $14.6 million to $14.8 million budget and adopt on the same day.

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The city’s new $28.79 million budget is about .59 percent less than its $28.96 million 2011 budget. The new budget features no increase in city taxes and no layoffs.

It projects the city’s 2012 property tax revenue at $7.03 million, about 22.8 percent less than the $7.197 million estimated for 2011. The projection is based on a drop in the city’s projected total assessed value of $314.4 million, which was about $2 million less than the 2011 estimated total revenue of $316.5 million.

Sales tax revenues are projected at $7.2 million, .6 percent less than the 2011 figure of $7.25 million. The city’s gaming revenues are estimated at $6.37 million, or about 4.6 percent less than the $6.68 million for 2011.

The budgets for the city’s fire and police departments were increased for 2012. The fire department’s $5.44 million budget is about 1.3 percent more than the $5.37 million it received in 2011. The police department budget is $6.52 million, about .32 percent more than the $6.50 million it got in 2011.

General government, which includes administration, accounting and other administrative services totals $5.42 million, while public works and landscaping, which involves the city’s infrastructure, community service and beautification has a $5.09 million budget.

Budgets for other city departments, which were inadvertently omitted from a chart on the Vicksburg city budget that ran in Friday’s Vicksburg Post, include:

• City clerk – 2011: $341,961; 2012: $333,649.

The 2011 $66,447 and 2012 $76,312 budgets listed for the city clerk should have been for the accounting department, which was not listed.

• Senior services – 2011: $99,974; 2012: $93,387

• Parks and Recreation Maintenance and personnel – 2011: $502,127; 2012: $503,053

• Riverfront Park – 2011: $71,610; 2012: $74,110

• Main Street: 2011 – $131,922; 2012: $129,936