The Virginian-Pilot
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City officials plan to use a budget surplus to give employee bonuses, fight gangs, reinstate free bulk refuse pick-ups and build its reserve fund.
The proposals were released Friday in the agenda for the City Council's meeting next week. If approved, the expenditures would account for about $2 million of a $3.5 million surplus from the fiscal year that ended June 30.
The remaining $1.5 million would go toward the city's reserve fund for emergencies.
In late February, with four months remaining in the fiscal year, City Manager Selena Cuffee-Glenn warned that projections showed a shortfall of $3.9 million. She made several moves to cut costs, including a hiring freeze on nonessential positions and reduced contributions to the risk fund.
Those and other cost-saving measures helped produce the surplus.
Council members have not publicly discussed giving rebates to residents. That would be logistically difficult, Councilman Robert Barclay said. A contribution to the reserve fund could potentially be used to lower the real-estate tax rate, he said.
The proposals on how to spend the money include putting $1 million toward bonuses for "classified service city employees" and council appointees who helped create the surplus by cutting costs, according to a staff report on the resolution.
It was unclear Friday how large the bonuses would be and how many employees would receive one.
Another $550,000 would go toward reinstating free collection of bulk trash piles no bigger than 8 cubic yards.
The City Council started charging residents $20 for the service this summer. The new policy, which includes $50 fees for larger piles, has been the object of criticism.
The resumption of free service might be ready to begin next month, Barclay said.
A third item would put $432,730 toward creating a second Neighborhood Enforcement Team for the Police Department.
Called NET for short, the existing group primarily focuses on gang activity and youth crime downtown. It was formed several years ago after a spate of gun violence.
The team so far has kept gang activity under control, Police Chief Thomas Bennett said recently. But northern Suffolk has attracted gangs from other nearby Hampton Roads cities, and Bennett said a second NET team could help that area.
Pilot writer Kristin Davis contributed to this article.
Dave Forster, (757) 222-5563, dave.forster@pilotonline.com
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Suffolk proposals on surplus
How convenient, some people supposedly helped to save money and now they get a bonus, thats like putting gas in your car so that you can drive. Doing your job is part of your job description so why not be glad you have a job and just do it, why do you feel compelled to do your job to get a bonus,oh that's right,your pocket is for everyone else's money
Congratulations
The City Manager should be congratulated on make the cost cutting decisions which inturn produced this budget surplus. Maybe this type of conservative, thought provoking form of government should be the norm. However, using taxpayer money to pay for bonuses when most of the citizens are struggling to make ends meet doesn't appear to be well thought out.
Amazing
"Council members have not publicly discussed giving rebates to residents. That would be logistically difficult, Councilman Robert Barclay said. A contribution to the reserve fund could potentially be used to lower the real-estate tax rate, he said."
The hubris of politicians is just astounding, and disgusting. Mr. Barclay has the correct answer....return the money to people who "donated" it to the city. If the correct answer is known, and apparently it is according to Mr. Barclay's own statement, then it can only be contempt for the people that prevents the city from doing what is proper.
Here's a novel idea
Spend only what is needed on essential services and put the rest away for a rainy day. The government is worse than teenagers with money, I swear it!!
Drunk Sailors, part II
the tax rate. Rewarding tax spenders for doing their jobs properly is bass ackwards. Do they not get paid for being good stewards of the public treasury in the first place? At least drunk sailors spend their OWN money...
"Drunk Sailors"
I recognize that this is a difficult concept for politicians to grasp, especially those who began their education in the Suffolk Public Schools after, say 1968, but what created the surplus is that taxpayers paid their taxes and that tax spenders were forced to cut back on their often questionable spending. If, for example, a hiring freeze was instituted for non-essential positions, those positions should simply be eliminated, certainly for the foreseeable future. Let's not kid ourselves, whatever label you wish to apply to the nation's current financial crisis, it is far from being solved, smoke and mirrors notwithstanding. Indeed, it is this kind of mushy thinking on the part of elected officials to spend whenever there is a so-called "surplus" that creates budget issues in the first place. As for the $20 fee for collection of bulk trash piles, it should be increased as a means of encouraging recycling and reuse. Whatever stuff that cannot be put to further use, which amazingly becomes less so when forced to think about it, should incur a fee. The NET might be the only item that should be funded by the "surplus" and the rest should be placed in reserves, eventually reducing