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                    "City council members left its final budget work session Tuesday morning believing it faced the prospect of approving a budget with a roughly $1.8 million deficit, which would require dipping into cash reserves to cover.\nBy the time the council unanimously approved the budget at its Tuesday evening meeting, that deficit was down to about $160,000.\nChief Financial Officer Jim Brigham credited the shift in fortunes to \u201cfinding a couple of mistakes that I made.\u201d Among those mistakes, according to Brigham and Ward 6 Councilman Jason Spears, who chairs the city\u2019s finance committee, were miscalculations in payroll projections and counting the payoff for tax-increment financing debt twice in the draft budget Brigham presented to the council.\nBrigham credited \u201cteamwork\u201d to putting together an acceptable budget. During Tuesday\u2019s meeting, he gave special credit to Spears for helping him nail down the numbers, a matter of weeks after publicly criticizing the finance chair for meddling in the budget process.\n\u201cWe have worked extremely hard, but what I\u2019m proud of about this budget is that we worked as a team,\u201d a tearful Brigham said Tuesday. \u201cWe put a lot of work into this budget. It\u2019s not everything we want, but it\u2019s everything we need. In particular I want to thank Councilman Spears. Some citizens may think he and I don\u2019t get along. That\u2019s not the truth. The truth is we respect each other, and we may not agree with each other, but we\u2019re truthful with each other.\u201d\n\u201cTeamwork makes the dream work,\u201d Spears responded.\nSpeaking to The Dispatch after the council meeting about Brigham\u2019s errors, Mayor Stephen Jones said \u201cmistakes happen.\u201d\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tStephen Jones\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t really concern me as long as he got it straight in the end,\u201d Jones said, adding the weekslong budgeting process had been \u201cgrueling.\u201d\nThe budget shows cash reserves dropping from $7.96 million to $7.8 million next fiscal year.\nThe new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.\nWhat\u2019s in the budget\nThe city\u2019s roughly $29 million budget includes 3% raises for almost all employees, as well as $243,000 in additional targeted raises in the police department.\nIt creates six new positions across several departments, including city accountant, technology specialist, fire inspector/EMS liaison, bucket truck operator and maintenance technician.\nThe budget also includes about $750,000 to pay off the TIF debts early for University Mall and Moores Creek and $500,000 to jumpstart amphitheater operations \u2013 all money the council had braced to come from its cash reserves before final corrections were made to the budget.\nAt Tuesday\u2019s budget session, Spears suggested budgeting staffing in large departments \u2013 such as police, fire and public works \u2013 at 90% since those departments are chronically understaffed. Brigham believed that would create $1.2 million in budget savings. However, Spears said corrections to those figures showed significantly more savings.\nBrigham and Spears both also doubled the sales tax growth projection from 2% to 4% in the final budget, which added another roughly $240,000 in revenue.\nThat sparked some debate from council members Tuesday morning, particularly Ward 3\u2019s Rusty Greene, who favored a more conservative estimate.\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tRusty Greene\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\n\u201cYour first projection was 2(% growth),\u201d Greene said. \u201cNow you\u2019re coming back at 4. Is there a compromise in there at 3?\u201d\n\u201cBut then you\u2019re just guessing,\u201d Spears responded.\n\u201cI thought that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing at 4,\u201d Greene said.\nSpears argued that with rising costs, his growth estimate is not \u201covershooting ridiculously.\u201d\n\u201cEven if we see a stagnation of prices at these higher rates, it\u2019s still going to produce higher because consumption is not slowing down,\u201d he said.\nCity Attorney Jeff Turnage warned against the public perception of missing the sales tax projection mark, particularly since The Dispatch publishes collection totals monthly.\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tJeff Turnage\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\n\u201cIf you over-project on sales tax, then every time the monthly sales tax comes in, we\u2019re going to be on the front page of the paper \u2018lagging\u2019 (behind) the projection,\u201d Turnage said. \u201cWhich is a bad thing because you don\u2019t want to be behind your budget.\u201d\nThis fiscal year, the city missed its $12 million sales tax projection by about $24,000, but collections grew by 3.07% from Fiscal Year 2025.\nWhat\u2019s not in the budget\nAt Spears\u2019 urging, planned targeted raises for fire department personnel, totaling $337,000, were removed from the budget draft Tuesday.\nFirefighters will still see the 3% raise.\nSpears said the fire department\u2019s plan wasn\u2019t as well structured as the police department\u2019s. He also argued the police department\u2019s staffing issues are more pressing.\n\u201cEverybody \u2026 knows well the staffing issues we\u2019ve had at the police department,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to target raises to get a department kickstarted, that\u2019s where we would want to start with. The fire department, they need raises too, but their plan was not as defined as what (Police) Chief (Garland) Ward gave to us.\u201d\nJones pushed back, saying that move would \u201csend a message\u201d to the fire department.\n\u201cBoth of them were defined,\u201d Jones said. \u201cYou\u2019re choosing the police department over the fire department.\u201d\n\u201cIf you want to phrase it that way, go right ahead, Mayor, but that is not what is happening here,\u201d Spears responded, indicating he wanted to revisit the fire department raises next year.\nJones said he supported those raises staying in primarily since it was public knowledge they were in the budget draft.\n\u201cPutting something out there in public that you\u2019re giving it to them, then taking it back, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s fair,\u201d he said.\nCut from the budget also was a $100,000 special projects fund.\nThe positions of grant writer and public information officer, which had been in the FY 2026 budget, were not included for next fiscal year.\nOther business\nIn other business, the council:\n\u25a0 appointed Nic Parish to the Golden Triangle Development LINK Board;\n\u25a0 approved purchasing $31,767 in holiday decorations at the request of Main Street Columbus;\n\u25a0 approved hiring two deputy clerks for municipal court;\n\u25a0 approved hiring four certified officers, two reserve officers and rehiring a certified officer in the police department; and\n\u25a0 promoted four firefighters to engineers in fire and rescue.\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\tZack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n      \n      \n        Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community."
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