City: Spending Down, Overtime Up

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Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. was pleased to announce the city only used about 23 percent of the yearly budget in the first-quarter of the fiscal year.

by Jacob Fuller
Feb. 16, 2012

When Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. and the city of Jackson set the budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year, they didn't plan to do as well as the first-quarter numbers now indicate.

With one-fourth of the year gone, the city's expenses are at only about 23 percent of the projected yearly budget, and sales tax revenue is above one-fourth of the expected yearly numbers.

Though the shopping-heavy holiday season likely explains the high sales tax numbers, the below-projected spending is welcome news for a government constantly searching for budget cuts.

One area that raised concern for the city budget was employee overtime. Three departments have used more than 25 percent of their yearly overtime allotment in the first quarter--police, fire and public works--setting the city well over its projected overtime spending for the quarter.

"If you look at the overall overtime budget, we are about at 38 percent--about 13 percent over where we should be if you're looking at it as pure math. But this is not a pure-math process," Johnson said.

"There's some extenuating circumstances that caused the overtime budget to be 13 percent above what it should be at 25 percent. We think that adjustments can be made both on the revenue side and the expense side. Therefore, we're not recommending any revisions at this time."

Public works has needed more work hours than expected, largely because of broken water lines that needed repairing or replacing.

"I don't see any end in sight as far as public works and the number of emergencies that they are having to respond to," Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon said.

"And it's not only repairing the water and sewers, but then you're taking up sidewalks, and you're digging up streets. And you have to come back later and rebuild, not knowing really whether we fixed it or not, because we're having to patch so much. I'm just concerned about the budgetary impacts of what I see happening almost on a daily basis."

Johnson said overtime in the police department will be reduced with the addition of 25 new recruits and another 31 that are currently in field training who will join the force on the streets March 25.

The fire department went over its projected overtime allotment more than any other department.

"There's another group of (fire) recruits that are in training right now. That's going to help tremendously. But there were promotions in the fire department. When you promote people in the fire department, you have to pay them more," Johnson said. "But for some reason, there have been an inordinate amount of fires here lately. We've averaged more than two fires a day just in the month of February."

With new recruits easing the overtime budget and property taxes set to come in during the second quarter, Jackson could be in even better shape after the midway point of the year.

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