Council OKs 2021 budget

After a month of deliberation, Portland City Council voted in favor of the 2021 budget.

Council passed the budget on first reading at its meeting Monday. As it currently stands, the budget includes a 1.5% raise all full-time city employees and most elected officials.

Portland’s council also approved a five-year capital improvement plan for how to spend economic development income tax dollars in the city.

The proposed budget, which will be up for approval on second and final reading at the next council meeting, was originally announced Sept. 8 with a 3% raise for all full-time city employees. That raise was requested to be cut in half by council members, who also voted to amend the budget to give part-time dispatchers and firefighters in Portland police and fire departments a $2 raise.

Currently, Portland Fire Chief Mike Weitzel’s 22 part-time firefighters make $12.44 an hour with plenty of opportunity for overtime, Weitzel said. Comparatively, part-time police officers make around $16 an hour but don’t have a lot of overtime opportunity, city clerk-treasurer Lori Phillips said.

Council member Janet Powers, who introduced the amendment, said she wanted to see part-time firefighters and officers make about the same.

“I think that they deserve the raise. I just hope it doesn’t cause any problems,” said Weitzel, who had concerns that the lowest paid full-time firefighter would make just around $1 more an hour than part-time firefighters under the proposed budget.

The payroll ordinance did not apply to Portland Mayor John Boggs and Phillips’ salaries, which cannot be changed by an ordinance, or Portland City Court Judge Donald Gillespie, who requested his salary stay the same because he is hearing fewer cases in his court.

The proposed budget includes $267,000 for the Portland Economic Development Income Tax fund, $1,000 more than the current year’s budget. The fund’s 2021-25 capital improvement plan was presented by Jay County Development Corporation’s Travis Richards.

The plan has the same goals as the 2016-20 plan except money can now be used to fund residential projects, such as housing developments, in addition to workforce development, helping start new businesses and projects in the city’s tax increment financing (TIF) district.

“The city, some would argue, is the chief beneficiary of (Jay County Development Corporation) services,” Richards said.

Richards estimated around $150,000 of the annual budget would go toward development projects, $50,000 to JCDC and $5,000 toward a promotion fund, which is commonly used to promote for the city to developers and for travel expenses for local officials. That budget will utilize an estimated three-fourths of the annual budget, Richards said, leaving the rest for anything else needed in a given year.

In other business, council members Don Gillespie, Matt Goldsworthy, Kent McClung, Michele Brewster, Mike Aker, Dave Golden and Powers:

•Heard from Boggs that the city received a recertification report of The ELAM Group’s study of the forSheller-Globe south building, 510 S. Bridge St. That report will be forwarded to Indiana Department of Environmental Management, which is expected to use it to complete its study so the building can be eventually sold to John Goodhew of Goodhew’s Roofing and Metals for $52,500.

•Set trick or treat hours on Halloween from 5 to 8 p.m. McClung noted the Centers for Disease Control has guidelines for how to have a safe Halloween at bit.ly/33yyOk3. “Be safe and be smart about it,” McClung added.

•Tabled a vote on vacating an alley near the intersection of Adams and Wayne streets so council members can have more time to review the issue.

•Voted to close Main Street between Ship and Meridian streets from noon to 4 p.m. Oct. 25 for a parade sponsored by Disabled American Veterans Post #24 that is scheduled to run that day from the former site of Walmart, 1600 N. Meridian St., to the intersection of Ship and Main streets.