The Levelland City Council held two special sessions on Monday and Tuesday evening to cover the upcoming budget.
Deciding to comb through the General Fund in the Monday meeting, a handful of minor adjustments in different areas were discussed.
For the Municipal Court budget, Judge Wilson only asked for a slight increase in a training and travel budget as he has some assistants he wishes to see ascend to higher levels of training. This reflects the judge’s desire to get the court up and running to full efficiency as he continues his restructuring and settling in.
For Levelland Police Department, Chief Garcia had a few items that brought his portion of the budget up to $3.5 million with three additional School Resource Officers that Levelland ISD was requesting.
It was estimated that an increase in the budget would roughly be $45,000. This is because Levelland ISD will be paying 80% of these officers’ salaries. Should the council assist the department, it would mean that current officers would not need to be shifted away from standard patrol to cover SRO positions.
Another line item increase would be $30,000 for the animal control department to purchase new equipment they many need. It also would pay for the refurnishing of some of the cages at the animal shelter, which Garcia stated had to be taken offline due pour conditions.
Fire Chief Jay McKay explained to council that bunker gear had been one of the items seeing an increase as of late. An increase to about $5,000 per set led McKay to increase an equipment line item from $52,000 to $55,000.
Additionally he is requested another firefighter to join the city, estimated at $79,000. Currently, there are certain times in shifts where only one firefighter is present at the fire station, which can be dangerous.
McKay explained that the extra hand would ensure that there are at least two firefighters on hand at any given time.
The last item brought before council was the cost of utilities for the firehouse. McKay explained that the lack of insulation within the building sees their budget suffer during the winter months as heating costs increase. Council was adamant about developing a plan for insulating the building, but otherwise saw no issue with this portion of the budget.
The Emergency and Health Services Department only saw an increase in fuel, as well as a new line item to provide food for firefighters should additional resources need to be brought in.
Levelland and Hockley County Emergency Management Coordinator Cole Kirkland stated that some of his equipment he was considering replacing would only need new batteries instead. These replacements were pushed back specifically as other departments had some new equipment needs to tend to this year.
Parks and Cemetery Director Dustin Reichelt explained to the group that most of the mowers in his fleet were over a decade old, and had increasingly been breaking down or needing maintenance work. Expanding on the topic, the reasoning was after the long streak of rain the area received a few months ago. In order to purchase three new mowers, the department would need roughly $60,000, but should this increase be approved, a decrease would be present in maintenance costs, as newer mowers would need repairs less frequently.
In this preliminary budget was a decrease in the amount relegated for seasonal help, as Reichelt stated they were seeing less seasonal hires, and they were staying with the department for shorter spans than before.
This resulted in an increase in the overtime allotment, as without seasonal assistants, regular city employees would work overtime to compensate.