Jackson Free Press

Halfway into the budget year, the city of Jackson has to move money around thanks to overtime costs and JATRAN budget overruns, among other issues.

Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. pitched a proposal to the Jackson City Council last week.

"The total amount of revisions is a little over $4 million, and most of that, about $3.5 million, will be coming out of our applied-fund balance. The remainder, $600,000 or so, will be coming out of savings that we anticipate," Johnson told the Jackson Free Press.

The city's "applied-fund balance" is an unrestricted reserve fund composed of savings created in some city departments, many due to budgeted employee positions that remain unfilled.

Johnson said one of the biggest drains on the budget is the city's arbitration conclusion with JATRAN bus workers, which resulted in $984,000 in back pay and vacation costs to unionized bus drivers and mechanics, and an annual increase of about $550,000 for those employees in the 2011 budget.

The mayor handed the Council a proposal last year to reduce some routes to recoup the costs of the arbitration settlement, but a majority of the council rejected the proposal, leaving the administration to squeeze the budget for the new bill. In addition to an extra $1 million that Johnson expects JATRAN employees to need this year, rising gas prices are forcing the city to add another $200,000 to the bus budget.

The city will also have to add $1.2 million to its tort-claims fund. State law requires a city the size of Jackson to have about $2.5 million in the fund, according to the mayor, who said the city only has "about $2 million" in the fund now. Johnson said the city needs to add an additional $700,000 in anticipation of future claims. Johnson did not speak upon the nature of the new claims.

Police overtime remained an issue, having run up $1.1 million in costs.

"We've had a lot of (police) visibility, and we're still not fully staffed for the officers that we're budgeted for," Johnson said. "Plus, even those that we have on staff are not always out patrolling. They may be on medical leave or on military leave or be on desk duty."

The city remains short of its 460 budgeted officers, despite the graduation of recruits earlier this year.

The city also needs to fill a $275,000 shortfall in its municipal early-childhood-centers budget, match a $40,000 AmeriCorps grant, and repay $100,000 to its "grass-cutting" budget, since it borrowed that amount to fund needed demolition work.

The Council budget committee approved the proposal last week, and will put the issue before the regular Council for a vote May 31.

Ward 2 Councilman Chokwe Lumumba said he saw no reason to oppose the revision.

"These things didn't seem to be anything but necessary," Lumumba said. "... I would say this about the tort claims thing: We need to take a better look at settling some of these cases earlier on."