At a budget workshop on Thursday afternoon, May 2, the town board and the heads of various departments hashed out some details on water plans, police training and more.
The proposed budget this year is $44.681 million, increased from last year’s budget of $31.086 million. There was a $15,000 increase in capital projects that accounted for some of the change, as well as a $12,000 raise in scholarship funds. The budget for capital projects this year is $22.072 million.
Mayor Patrick Taylor said after the meeting that the large increase came from several grants the town got which had to be reflected in the budget.
Town Manager Josh Ward said the projected revenue was steady.
The Recreation Department fee schedule has one change this year, with an $8 fee for ice skating and a $100 per day charge for pickleball, according to Recreation Department Director Lester Norris.
In addition, the commissioners discussed a change to the budget from not charging businesses a fee for bear-proof commercial toters anymore. That comes in the wake of numerous incidents where bears were able to break into the toters, so going forward, the businesses will own their own toters and pay to replace them if damaged.
Water discussion
The budget this year includes substantial increases to water connection fees, which, until this year, had been the same since 2006. One big change this time is that the cost of meter and installation is separate from the water connection fee.
A 3/4” meter used to be $1,000 in town and $1,500 out of town. Now it will be $2,400 in town and $3,900 out of town.
A 1” meter will now be $3,000, up from $1,200, while between 1” and 2” will be $4,000, up from $1,400, and finally for 2” and larger, the fee is $5,500, up from $1,600.
The changes stem from the statewide Local Government Commission telling the town that it wasn’t charging enough for water, and that they needed to build up their reserve fund after spending on numerous recent projects in the past few years.
The new pricing for water also includes a bulk water charge of $150 per 500 gallons, which Ward said would apply to people trying to fill swimming pools or other large areas.
All the minimum charge rates have risen this year, going up $10 in town and $20 out of town. The minimum charges were put into place to accommodate the fact that many residents of Highlands left town during the colder seasons.
In addition, there was some discussion over water usage rates. The first 5,000 gallons for a normal 3/4 inch meter are at the minimum charge, but commissioners said that might need to be changed since it’s rare that residents use that much water.
“There are not many residential homes hitting our minimum,” agreed Commissioner John Dotson. “We should take a good hard look at what residential is using. If they’re not using 5,000 gallons for a minimum charge, we should drop it down.”
There was some talk about lowering the 5,000-gallon minimum back down to 2,500 gallons as it was before, but the commissioners decided to have more talks about that before officially making changes.
Police training
The commissioners and police chief Andrea Holland talked about a new system of paying new recruits while they’re going through mandated Basic Law Enforcement Training (BLET). The training takes several months, and recruits are required to take full days to go through classes and exercises, meaning the recruits aren’t able to work while doing it.
“Who wants to go to training for nine months with no pay to support your family?” Holland said. “No one would. No one can do it, now.”
If there are any prospective officers coming in, the town will pay the tuition to get them through BLET and then, if it looked like the recruits were good candidates after a little while in their classes, the town would pay them a wage for the rest of their time in school if they agreed to work in Highlands for a few years once they completed training.
Holland said they could usually tell within a few weeks who would be a good candidate to work as a police officer in town.
Ward said paying them if they proved they were serious would be “more incentive to study, it would encourage more younger folks to get involved.”
Commissioner Amy Patterson said her hope was that the town could get to a place where it was able to get numerous strong choices on who to hire for the police department, “not just take whatever comes out.”
There was some discussion about what to do about cases where officers take the money from Highlands PD to go to school, then quickly leave for other jobs in other areas instead. They said that was “the cost of business.”
“From a competition standpoint, it’s not a level playing field,” Commissioner Jeff Weller said. “This is how you level the playing field. You’ve got to pay them from day one.”
“I didn’t get paid to go to school, and I’m a single mom,” Holland said. “But it’s where we are.”
The next Board of Commissioners meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 16.