A couple of unexpected meetings

The Rensselaer City Council held a special meeting on Wednesday at 4:00 to discuss budget items. The amount of money that they can expect in taxes has been given to the City by the State and it is less than it was last year. (Perhaps this decrease reflects the effects on the local economy of the closing of Saint Joseph's College.) After reworking the budget a number of times, the Mayor the Clerk/Treasurer came up with a budget that has a deficit of about $130,000. The Mayor thinks that at the end of the year there will be enough unspent money in this year's budget to cover that deficit. Health insurance is rising by 8.5%, which is less than expected.

As part of the budget, the mayor proposed a 3% across-the-board increase in wages for full-time employees. Rick Odle wanted to know what the dollar amount of that increase was and that information was not available. He expressed frustration at being asked to approve a budget when the numbers needed for him to make a sound decision were not available. George Cover moved that instead of a 3% raise, the raise be 2.5%. Eventually that proposal was passed with one nay vote even though no one knew how much of an impact that would have on the $130,000 shortfall.

As they were ready to adjourn, Claude Grow, superintendent of the power plant, mentioned a letter he had sent to the Council arguing that his workers were being paid about $5 less than workers doing similar work at other municipalities and private companies. He also said that they were below what City linemen were making. The Council discussed the wages but declined to act on his concerns at this meeting.

As the Council was again getting ready to adjourn, someone pointed out that they had not voted on the cuts in the proposed budget. They did so and then adjourned.

This is not the end of budgeting. The budget now goes to the State where it will be approved or more likely changed.

The Board of Public Works was scheduled to meet on Monday before the City Council meeting but did not because it lacked a quorum. Instead it met on Thursday afternoon. It approved payments to Commonwealth Engineering for its work on recent paving and the water-well project. It also approved a promotion of Police Corporal White to Sergeant. It briefly discussed a proposed contract revision between the City Fire Department and the Marion Township Trustee. The current contract dates from 1997. Some of the equipment was purchased and is owned by the City and some (most) was purchased and owned by the Township. The two entities have worked together to provide fire protection not just to Rensselaer and Marion Township but several other townships as well. The biggest change in the proposed contract would be that the Township Trustee would move his office to the Fire Station. The Fire Chief said that the advantage of this to the City is that the Station would have a human presence two days a week and also that the Trustee's secretary could do some of the paper work for the Fire Department. There was some question about what would happen to a small payment that the Trustee makes to the City and that needs to addressed before the Board gives the contract approval.

The spray-paint artist who did the mural on the Embers building is back in Indiana working in Lafayette. He paid a visit to Rensselaer in the last day or two and left a small painting on the old carriage house on the alley behind Fenwick Farms Brewery. When I stopped to snap a picture, there were three young people there and they were posing a young girl in front of the butterfly. It makes for a wonderful backdrop and gives the person posing butterfly wings.