Speed-camera revenue might give Bluff City salaries a boost

BLUFF CITY, Tenn. – City officials plan to use the estimated $400,000 in revenue their speed cameras are expected to generate this fiscal year to, among other things, give police officers a $2.02 an hour pay raise.

“We’re going to find ourselves becoming a training ground here,” Police Chief David Nelson said Thursday as he defended the proposed pay raise, which would bring his officers’ starting wages to $12 an hour.

The new income also will be used to cover raises for other employees, expected losses in sales tax revenue, retirement fund costs, office equipment and to save for a rainy day.

On Thursday, the Bluff City Board of Mayor and Aldermen held their first reading of the city’s proposed $1.2 million budget for the current fiscal year, which started July 1. Last year, the budget was about $1 million.

Board members will conduct a public hearing on the spending plan, and cast their final vote, during a special meeting later this month.

One-third of the city’s projected revenues for the current fiscal year comes from the two speed cameras installed to monitor the 45 mph zone on U.S. 11E. Violators are charged $90 per citation.

The city keeps $50 of every $90 fine assessed by the cameras while the remaining money goes to American Traffic Solutions, an Arizona-based company that operates the equipment and collects the fines.

The two other major sources of revenue for the city are property tax and sales tax collections.

By keeping the property tax rate at $1.03 per $100 of assessed value, the city plans to collect $230,000 in property taxes this year – the same amount collected last year. But city officials are expecting sales tax collections to fall significantly due to the loss of several businesses. This year, the city expects to bring in $120,000 in sales taxes. Last year, the city budgeted $210,000 in sales tax revenue, but received $155,000.

As far as expenditures go, the current budget includes $45,000 in pay raises for employees. In addition to increases for police officers, the raises include:

• $1.04 an hour for public works employees;
• and 57 cents an hour for office personnel.

Nelson said the pay raise for his officers, who currently earn $9.98 an hour, is the first they’ve had in five years. Because of the low pay, the police chief said, two of his eight officers have taken jobs with the Carter County Sheriff’s Department in the past 18 months and two other officers told him they were looking for new jobs.

Nelson said it’s important to keep officers around for a long time because they city needs to send every new recruit to the police academy and put them through a six-month ride-along before they can start work.

“It costs so much to hire an officer,” Nelson said.

But while board members approved Nelson’s request, they rejected a request by City Recorder Judy Dulaney to give office personnel another 57 cents an hour so they would get the same raise as public works employees.

Alderman Robert Miller said board members had reached a consensus on the original pay raise schedule – with office workers getting 57 cents – during an earlier work session and it would be inappropriate to change it after that meeting.

The final major new expenses for the city’s budget are increases in health insurance, worker’s compensation and retirement plan payments. For Nelson’s department alone, the three items will cost the city $20,620 more this fiscal year than in the previous budget.

The proposed budget also includes a 10 percent increase in the city’s water and sewer rates that is needed so the utility can make a profit, which is something the state comptroller’s office said must happen this year.

The city’s speed cameras brought in an estimated $786,000 over the past fiscal year, the one that started July 1, 2009, according to the city’s budget proposal. Concerned about possible legislative changes in the way the cameras are used, city officials decided to be conservative on the expected revenues in the coming year.

That initial revenue from the cameras was squirreled away into the city’s general fund reserves – bringing that account’s balance from $254,473 at the start of that fiscal year to $971,957 – and to cover other expenses not included in that year’s budget.

Also this year, the city plans to add another $30,000 to its surplus accounts, bringing the total balance to $1 million at the end of this fiscal year.

gmclean@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2518