Jackson Free Press

Jackson City Council members may have voiced concerns over their role in crafting the city's budget for fiscal year 2012, but yesterday's special meeting to add amendments to the budget was anti-climatic with only two proposed changes passed.

Ward 2 Councilman Chokwe Lumumba made a motion for all city employees making less than $17,000 a year to receive an additional $2 per hour. Under the mayor's proposed city budget, all city employees will receive a 2 percent raise in January 2012. In addition to the mayor's raise, Lumumba's motion would go into effect Oct. 1 and would cost the city approximately $262,080, he said.

"We have the job of expressing the people's wish," Lumumba said. "The way we see it, the people in our city do not wish to be working at poverty wages. Although we can't solve all the problems in one fell swoop, we can try to address these problems."

City attorney James Anderson warned council members that the additional raise could cost more in Workmen's Compensation and overtime payments. He also said it could result in legal problems if some workers made more than their supervisors.

Ward 1 Councilman Quentin Whitwell then made a motion to decrease Lumumba's proposed raises to 75 cents an hour because of the additional cost, and council members passed the motion. The council, however, has yet to pass next year's budget and the motion may not make it to the final version.

Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson also expressed concerns about how the raises would impact other areas of the budget.

"If we are going to try to improve the pay of lower-paid workers, we are going to need more time to assess it," Johnson said. "If not, we are going to run into some problems in terms of litigation."

Other attempts to amend the city's budget did not pan out. Whitwell made a motion for the city's park and recreation services to include $200,000 for a study to make improvements to Parham Bridges Park, which is in his ward. He then changed his motion to include $500,000 to study all city parks to gain the support of other council members.

The amendment would have likely resulted in an unfunded mandate; Johnson said that it would overlap work that the city was already doing, and suggested that Whitwell help form community partnerships for Parham Bridges Park like the Fondren community had done to build Fondren Park.

Whitwell rescinded his original motion and Johnson promised to take care of park maintenance when alerted of any issues.

"It was obvious that there wasn't an appetite for just singling out one park among my colleagues, and I respect that," Whitwell said. "The mayor assured me that there is plenty of money in the budget for him to get employees and staff to handle upkeep and landscaping at Parham Bridges."

Whitwell added that the biggest point of the meeting was to demonstrate to the mayor that the council wants a stronger presence in the budget process, and said he was satisfied with the mayor's response.

Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes also proposed that the city hire a stenographer to transcribe meetings but that motion failed.

The council's budget committee has conducted hearings over the last two weeks in which they have received reports on expenditures from all city departments and asked questions of department heads. On Aug. 17, the council's budget committee held a recap meeting to offer amendments to the budget, At that meeting Lumumba made an motion for the city clerk's office to include a policy analyst position. Council members voted in favor of hiring a policy analyst at yesterday's meeting. Whitwell, who serves on the committee, was not present at the recap meeting.

On Monday, Aug. 22, Johnson appeared surprised when council members announced that they would hold a special meeting to offer additional amendments. Johnson and council president Frank Bluntson also sparred over Johnson refusing to release a list of the salaries and names of all city employees.

Bluntson did not offer a specific reason for wanting the names and salaries other than the fact that former Mayor Frank Melton had given the council that information in the past. Bluntson did not request the information last year. Johnson maintains that determining employees' salaries is an administrative function and not for the council to decide.

Yesterday, Bluntson said he was still determined to obtain the information, and came armed with copies of former attorney general's opinions stating that public employee salaries and names can be disclosed to the public. The state's open records law does not exempt public employee's salaries and names from being released.

"We want to check everything out," Blunston said. "It's a matter of public record."

The city will hold a public meeting on the proposed fiscal year 2012 budget at 6 p.m. Aug. 29 at city hall.

Also see: Council Spars With Mayor on Budget