Council tables transfers for further study

Aug. 2—The Meridian City Council is holding off on several budget amendments as it works to better understand what money is being transferred and why.

In a meeting Tuesday, the council voted to table two transfers within public works, one of which was for $3,700 and the other for $250,000.

Assistant Public Works Director Mike Van Zandt said the $3,700 transfer was to purchase two laptops for use in traffic signal maintenance. The laptops were originally set to be budgeted for the upcoming 2024 fiscal year, but funds had become available to buy them sooner.

Van Zandt said the money is coming out of a pot of $15,000 originally budgeted for the purchase of a plotter, which is a type of printer used to print maps, technical drawings and other large documents. Public works, he said, has decided it would be better to lease a plotter rather than purchase one.

Leasing a plotter is expected to cost about $6,000 per year over five years, Van Zandt said, which comes out to $30,000. That figure, however, includes the cost of toner cartridges, maintenance, replacement parts and service calls.

"The only thing we will have to buy is paper," he said.

If the city purchased a plotter, Van Zandt said it would likely cost an additional $4,000 to $5,000 per year for supplies and maintenance to keep the machine running. That would put the total cost of buying a plotter at approximately $35,000 to $40,000 over the same five-year period.

The other consideration is maintenance and who would be servicing the machine. Under a lease, Van Zandt said, there are local techs in the Meridian area who are able to work on the plotter if issues arise. If the city chose to buy the plotter, it would likely come with a one-year maintenance contract. After that, the city would need to look at buying into a service plan and would be dependent on a single maintenance person who covers the whole state, he said.

In the other tabled transfer, public works requested permission to transfer money from unfilled positions to go toward the city's match of a federal grant for Eighth Street.

In June, Van Zandt told council members the city had been awarded a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation Consolidation Appropriations Act for Highway Infrastructure Funding to make improvements along the heavily trafficked road. The project, he said, includes realigning intersections, moving traffic signals further back to make turns less sharp, and potentially sidewalk, curb and drainage projects depending on how far the funding can stretch.

On Tuesday, Van Zandt said the total amount of the grant was $3.75 million, with the federal grant covering up to $3 million. The city is required to match 20%, or a minimum of $750,000.

In planning the 2023 budget, public works added some additional positions required by the consent decree, Van Zandt said, but the city was not able to fill all of those positions. The plan, he said, is to take the $250,000 budgeted to pay those positions and redirect it to be part of the city's match for the Eighth Street grant.

Public works has already identified an additional $200,000 toward the match coming from the city's 2020 capital improvements bond, Van Zandt said, and is working to find the additional $300,000 needed to meet the 20% match requirement.

After brief discussion, the council voted to table the two budget amendments for further discussion at a work session. At the work session, the council will try to get a better understanding of what public works is asking it to do and what the department hopes to accomplish by transferring the funds.

Police Cameras

In other business, Meridian Police Department's Lt. Patrick Gale said both new body cameras and new in-vehicle dash cameras have gone out for bid. Vendors will have several weeks to submit their bids for consideration, with the city opening the bids on Aug. 18.

Chief Financial Officer Brandye Latimer said the bids will be reviewed and presented to the council at its first meeting in September, which is set for 9 a.m. on Sept. 5.

Once the council approves the lowest and best bid and authorizes the department to move forward, Gale said it would take roughly four weeks for the cameras to arrive. Some initial setup such as programming the cameras and setting up software will be involved, he said, and MPD is coordinating with the city's information technology department to handle that when the time comes.

Contact Thomas Howard on Twitter @tmhoward