TUPELO • City officials successfully approved changes to the city’s budget, including moving a contracted employee to full-time and paying the difference in equipment the city purchased over the budgeted amount.
Chief Financial Officer Kim Hanna said there were two amendments to the budget she asked the council to approve at the Tuesday night meeting. One amendment moved the salary of the contracted grant writer to the mayor’s budget to bring her on full-time, and the second amendment paid the difference of the cost of a knuckle boom truck — a truck with a long boom arm designed to load heavy items — the city purchased late last year.
“The first fund that I am requesting (an amendment to) is the general fund,” she said. “I am not asking to increase that fund. I am asking to transfer money from finance services to the mayor’s personnel budget.”
The council Tuesday voted 6-0 to approve the amendments. Ward 4 Councilwoman Nettie Davis was absent.
The position opened up after long-time city grant writer Terri Blissard died due to COVID-19 complications in July 2020. Abby Christian, the city’s new grant writer, came on through a contract between the city and Three Rivers Planning & Development District, an economic and workforce development agency in Northeast Mississippi.
Christian’s job is to apply for grants and secure funds for various projects for the city, including infrastructure, parks and equipment for city employees.
Hanna said the change to the position came when the city decided to make the job internal rather than contractual. The contracted employee applied and received the full-time position, so the salary had to be moved to accomplish the change.
When asked if the position traditionally was paid for from the mayor’s budget, Hanna said it “has been all over the city.”
“It has been in the police budget. It’s been in the fire department. It has been in development services. It was in the finance department last,” she said.
The reason Hanna said she had for moving the salary — $56,000, including benefits — to the mayor’s budget rather than another department was that she believed the grant writer does the majority of her work for the administration rather than a specific department.
“The priorities come from the administration, so it absolutely makes sense for that position to reside in the mayor’s budget,” she said.
The other amendment injected $20,500 into the sanitation fund’s unreserved fund balance to pay the difference in a knuckle boom truck purchased during the Dec. 21 council meeting. Hanna said Thursday that the city budgeted $185,000 but awarded the bid to TAG Truck Center, of Tupelo, for $205,550, which caused the discrepancy.
“We do have the funds to pay this increase,” she told the council before the vote Tuesday.
