Mayor to present budget Monday

GENTRY — After numerous meetings with the council and council committees looking for ways to pare back the city’s draft 2010 budget, Gentry Mayor Wes Hogue will present his budget to the full council at a special meeting on Monday night.

By law, Hogue said, he is required to present a budget to the council by Dec. 1. Because the next regular council meeting is not until Dec. 7, Hogue called a special meeting for 6:30 p.m. Nov. 30 to present his budget to the council.

The council then has until Feb. 1 to adopt a budget, though expenditures for the new year would have to be approved to keep the city government running.

Since council members have already been working closely with Hogue to pare back the budget and keep it as close as possible to budgeting expenditures at 90 percent of budgeted incoming revenue, it is expected that the council will approve the budget - with any changes it deems necessary - at its regular December meeting or, at the latest, before the end of the year.

With the uncertain economic times, Hogue and council members were careful to estimate incoming revenues conservatively and to leave close to a 10 percent buffer between budgeted income and budgeted expenditures.

The conservative budgeting practices have so far kept the city from cutbacks in services forced upon other cities because of declining tax revenues.