By Dyana Bagby
The Brookhaven City Council agreed to delay voting on the 2016 budget until Dec. 15 during its Tuesday meeting.
The proposed $32.9 budget was still undergoing changes and tweaks the day before the council meeting on Nov. 17 and some council members said they wanted more time to look at funding. There will be no penalty for delaying the budget vote, explained city Finance Director Carl Stephens.
“Some changes were being made until as late as yesterday” to the budget, said Mayor Rebecca Chase Williams after the meeting. “We always want to make sure people see it.”
Some specific questions were raised with the HOST (Homestead Option Sales Tax) funding, budgeted at $4.8 million.
“We have 14 parks and we want to be fair to all the parks,” Williams said.
Councilman Bates Mattison said at the meeting he hoped the city and council could have a finalized budget decided by Dec. 1 that would then be posted to the city’s website to give the public time to review.