Monterey Passes Budget With Questions Still To Answer

After a work session and meetings with department heads, Monterey Aldermen approved a first draft of a new fiscal-year budget Monday night that Aldermen admit will not work.

Board Member Alex Garcia said the draft was approved so that the town could have a second reading in May, a third in June, and be approved by July 1. The board scheduled an additional work session for Wednesday, April 24 to iron out further details, according to Monterey Mayor Mark Farley.

“It’s not really getting ready to finalize,” Farley said. “We’re just trying to get it timed in, you know, where we can get it because you’ve got to wait so far in between each one of them. We’ve got some line items we need to be working on like the Fire Department and a couple of other things, so that’s what we’re going to be working on.”

Farley said changes can be made to the budget until the second reading in May. He said once all of the final figures are together, the board will make a final decision about whether or not to raise property taxes. The board reached a consensus at its most recent work session that an increase was unavoidable.

“It’ll be a lot of it stays like it is,” Farley said. “It’ll just be a couple things that needs to be tweaked, you know, to get them in line, so it’ll be close.”

Garcia said he has a lot of questions that he hopes to discuss at the coming work session. Farley said meetings with department heads over the past week have been productive, but there are still line items clouded by uncertainty.

“They went well,” Farley said. “We had some that we’re still going to be working with, so we’ve got some questions that they’re supposed to be getting answers to, so we’re getting there.”