Erlanger’s proposed budget for next year will likely include a 5.5% increase in city salaries and an over $1.5 million total allocation for parks in the next fiscal year.
The city’s budget committee met on Wednesday to plan its budget for next year, which the council must vote on by July 1. The committee members discussed a variety of city operations, but two major points of focus stood out: merit-based raises for city employees and funding allocations for the city’s park improvement fund. No official action was taken at the meeting, but the discussion will inform the council’s deliberations leading up to the vote in the coming weeks.
The discussion began with the topic of raises. Mayor Jessica Fette had furnished some preliminary numbers for city workers’ base salaries, adding a 5% aggregate increase in allocations for merit-based raises, which would have added about $430,000 to the base salary line item.
Council Member Jennifer Jasper-Lucas pitched the idea of increasing the allocation more, up to 6%, which would add about $90,000 more to the initial $430,000. Jasper-Lucas and other committee members felt it was a good way of retaining quality employees.
“When our employees realize that we support them, and we are going to every year make sure that they are well taken care of, that makes them think twice about leaving,” Jasper-Lucas said.
Much of the subsequent discussion focused around making the numbers work with this extra percentage point. By the end of the meeting, the committee had split the difference, settling on 5.5%.
A sizeable chunk of the meeting's remainder focused on how much the city should allocate towards both improving the city's current parks and investing in a roughly $50 million parks expansion project, which first came before the council in January.
The expansion project would be rolled out in phases over a period of years. The plan from January eventually dovetailed into a broader effort by the city to build out its economic base and tourism industry, dubbed "Destination Erlanger," which Council Member Tyson Hermes and representatives from OneNKY Alliance and meetNKY, the region's tourism and convention bureau, presented to the city council earlier this month.
At the meeting earlier in May, Julie Kirkpatrick, meetNKY's president and CEO, cited a similar effort that had been carried out in Bentonville, Arkansas. According to an impact study from the University of Arkansas, Bentonville’s population rose from about 20,000 to 55,000, with trails generating an economic impact of $137 million yearly and $59 million in tourist revenue.
The project's scope is still in flux, but early proposals included a new dog park, a 22-mile long network of mountain biking trails, a museum, an elevated canopy trail as well as a meeting space and classroom.
Hermes also pitched the idea of wrapping road revisions in the Cherry Hill neighborhood, which has a history of sometimes destructive semi-truck traffic, into the plans, but, again, all of those discussions have been preliminary. Hermes did not attend Wednesday's meeting.
Erlanger has 12 city parks in its jurisdiction, and the city already has a dedicated fund for park improvements. Unused money therein often carries over from year to year, and $1 million had been allocated into the fund for the current fiscal year. The expected carry-over of unused funds into next year is about $944,000.
Fette had initially asked for an additional $656,000 to be transferred from the city's general into the parks fund, which would have put the total available to spend toward parks at $2.1 million for the next fiscal year.
There was discussion among committee members about whether this amount was worthwhile.
"It's a $50 million park," said Council Member Rebecca Reckers, who chairs the committee. "So what is the next ask for Erlanger?"
The number seemed steep, but Fette said that there may be an alternative--albeit one that's not guaranteed--in the form of a grant.
"The grant application opens on July 1," Fette said. "It's an economic development grant; it's federal dollars that's run through the state."
Fette did not have all of the details about the grant in front of her, but the possibility seemed to ease some of the committee's initial anxiety. By the end of the discussion, the proposed general fund transfer amount had declined to about $121,000, putting the total funds available for next year at a more modest $1.57 million.
"It's definitely a lot more palatable to me," Jasper-Lucas said. "It definitely changes things because then we can look at can we continue doing this year over year."
The results of the committee meeting will come before the city council in the coming weeks. The next meeting of the Erlanger City Council will occur on Tuesday, June 4 beginning at 7 p.m. at the Erlanger City Building on Commonwealth Avenue.