City plans budget hike
Published on 5/8/2008
By Tommy Howard
thoward@gtowntimes.com
Taxpayers in the City of Georgetown are likely to see a small hike in their property taxes, based on figures presented Thursday during a second budget workshop.
The hike would be a 2.9 percent increase, equal to the increase in the Consumer Price Index.
One outcome of that increase and other budget planning would be implementation of a compensation plan for the approximately 200 employees in the city. This would be the first increase
SEE CITY, Page 4A
in several years, City Administrator Steve Thomas said.
Mayor Lynn Wood Wilson entertained a motion to go into executive session at the beginning of the workshop. A reporter for the Georgetown Times said neither the newspaper nor the S.C. Press Association believed that was an appropriate use of the executive session provision of the state's Freedom of Information Act. Personnel issues for an individual are allowed to be discussed behind closed doors, but that was not the case since the announced purpose of the session was "to discuss personnel wage and compensation plan."
Wilson asked Thomas for his response. He said that City Council members would be shown salaries of every city employee as part of the presentation. For that reason, Thomas said, Council Chambers should be cleared.
While Council was in its 45-minute executive session, City Attorney Elise Crosby and Risk Manager Cindi Howard told the Times that the compensation plan needed to be presented with individual employee's names and salaries so Council members could better grasp how the "compression study" could be implemented.
Another budget workshop will be held on May 29 at 4 p.m.
Also, Wilson and Council members Brendon Barber, Rudolph A. Bradley, Jack M. Scoville and Peggy P. Wayne, along with Thomas and Lane Mixon, manager of Water/Wastewater/Stormwater, will be going to Washington for the day Tuesday.
They will meet with South Carolina Senators Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, and Rep. Henry Brown, to seek their help with the long-awaited city drainage project. The base project will cost about $14 million. The group will ask for $4 million in federal funds or "earmark funds" so the work can be done.
