Council approves final 2016 budget amendment

Published 7:28 pm Monday, April 17, 2017

The Dalton City Council squared up a few items in its 2016 budget on Monday, voting 4-0 to approve what Finance Director Cindy Jackson said would be the final amendment to that budget.

The amendment created line items for several things that were not included in the original $33.1 million budget the council approved in December 2015.

Among the items in the amendment was a line item for $209,640 in revenue from the hotel/motel tax.

On the other side of the ledger, the amendment created a line item for the $85,000 the council in September agreed to pay to Crawford Street Properties, the owner of one of the properties officials had discussed purchasing for a downtown park. The payment was part of a mutual release agreement in which the company agreed not to seek any legal action against the city in return for the city compensating it for cancelling a lease in anticipation of the sale of its property to the city.

Mayor Dennis Mock generally votes only in the event of a tie.

Council members also voted 4-0 to approve a five-year contract with Barge, Waggoner, Sumner and Cannon, an engineering and architectural firm with offices across the Southeast, for potential planning and engineering services at Dalton Municipal Airport. City Attorney Jim Bisson said the contract only establishes hourly rates — such as $43.15 for a civil engineer, $59.25 for an electrical engineer, $60.75 for an architect, $50 for a senior aviation planner, $42 for an environmental planner, $21.50 for a designer, $30.75 for a survey manager, $26.63 for an engineering intern and $53.75 for a survey crew — and other conditions for various services if the council requests them but does not bind the city to any projects.