By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
During their Monday, September 25 meeting, Atmore City Council members approved — without question or discussion — a $14.6 million municipal budget for Fiscal Year 2024.
The financing package calls for revenues of $14,640,725. More than half of that ($7.8 million) is expected to come from gross receipts taxes (city sales taxes). Anticipated ad valorem (property) taxes ($1.6 million), business licenses ($1.5 million), garbage fees ($820,000) and lodging taxes ($695,000) make up the brunt of the remainder.
Atmore Police Department will get the biggest slice ($4.3 million) of the budgetary pie, with Streets & Sanitation ($2.3 million), General Government ($2.3 million) and Atmore Fire Department ($1.9 million) accounting for the other major spending areas.
The General Government category includes salaries, wages, benefits and payroll taxes on employees not covered in departmental allocations, as well as utilities, telephone, accounting and legal fees, and other general expenses.
The budget also calls for an across-the-board pay increase for all city employees.
“There’s nothing that really stands out,” City Clerk Becca Smith said after the meeting.
Other action taken by the council:
*Approved purchase from a Drug Task Force Grant of a new pickup for the city police department’s drug task force. The vehicle will be purchased from Stiver Ford in Montgomery, off the state bid list, for $41,717.
*Approval of Main Street Atmore’s third annual Witches Ride. Main Street Atmore Executive Director Shinora Redmond said the Halloween-related event, which will take place October 28, would begin at the Boxcar Willie parking lot, go up Main Street, to Church, to Trammell; back to Boxcar Willie. The event is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m., immediately following the Trick or Treat on the Street event.
The meeting agenda also called for issuance of a proclamation for Jackie Lee, but nobody was present to make the formal request.