Brooklet city council held a called meeting at 10 A.M. on Saturday April 6, 2024. Mayor Nicky Gwinnett led a prayer and the pledge of allegiance, after which the council adopted the agenda, amending it to move the budget discussion to the item 6 position.
There was approval to a call for an election to be held on May 21, 2024, to fill the vacant seat in the council.
Councilman Bradley Anderson then led a discussion about a rough draft of budget expenditure and revenue expectations for the remainder of this fiscal year and the upcoming year.
Budget
Trends are showing that taxes, fees, permits, licenses and dues will not meet their target revenue for this fiscal year. The city has collected $379,000 but expected $425,000 this season. While there are still outstanding taxes, compared to this time last year they have not reached the expected percentage of the target revenue, which could be attributed to tax exemptions some groups received this year.
In these estimates, Councilman Anderson also says that street and water works have exceeded the budget by tens of thousands of dollars, but the current $300,000 fund reserve is 19% of the total budget, which is an improvement from previous years.
The preliminary estimate proposes that revenue in the city could be more than $1.5 million in the next fiscal year.
It was suggested that Well No. 3 be funded with the ARPA funds, and the excess cost of $62,000 still needed could come from water capitalization.
The grant services could also be attached to the water extension project as these are fees originating from AGLA application facilitation that helps make budget reports for those related grants. Parker Engineering water and sewer project may also fall into water extension.
The water fund could also be larger than expected as this is a conservative estimate.
Personnel
Councilman Keith Roughton proposes that applications open within the next month for the vacant public works position, as most of this department's resources are being pulled towards the water and sewage projects and leaving other important tasks around the city undone, such as landscaping in the downtown Brooklet area.
Mayor Gwinnett and the council say that it is also important that this budget reflects raises associated with cost of living that city employees have been expecting.
Mayor Gwinnett recognizes the city has been able to “move up the ladder” without raising taxes, but the council thinks it would be to the city's future detriment, not to acknowledge that a gap in revenues and expenditures will continue to increase if taxes remain stagnant.
Sewer
Updates about the water and sewer system for the new Southeast Bulloch High School were also on the agenda. It seems most probable and beneficial that the new school and the existing schools on the adjacent property will be incorporated into the final decisions being worked out in the sewage plan between Statesboro and Brooklet. There will be more information about the sewer plan after upcoming meetings with the city of Statesboro.
The current waterline leading towards the existing schools is more than capable of supplying the project and current water tank. Mayor Gwinnett reports that the school has agreed to build the new schools water tank, which he responds, "The bigger you build that water tank the bigger the yellow jacket will be."
The final item of discussion was the conversation of amendment to the concrete culvert ordinance that would place the associated fee into the fee schedule and dictate if citizens or the city are allowed to do this work, which will be voted on at the regular session. The meeting was adjourned just after 11:40 A.M.
