Story Highlights:

• The city council’s budget/ways and means committee will hold budget hearings for three days starting today.

• Hearings will start at 6:30 p.m. each day.

• At Monday’s meeting the committee will hear requests from outside agencies, Tuesday will feature requests from city departments, and Wednesday’s meeting will feature the Carthage Water and Electric budget and the start of perfecting the budget.

• The budget has to be finished in time to take effect on July 1.

A committee of the Carthage City Council will hear requests for a piece of the city’s budgetary pie over the next three days starting Monday evening.

The council’s Budget/Ways and Means Committee will hold its first budget hearing from 6:30 p.m.-9:45 p.m. Monday at the Carthage City Hall.

Hearings are also scheduled for 6:30 p.m.-9:45 p.m., Tuesday and 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

City Administrator Tom Short said budget hearings will primarily deal with spending the money in the city’s general revenue fund, the fund that pays for most city services.
Short said the city has received about $11.3 million in requests for city funding and has about $9.1 million to cover those requests.

“So we’re looking at a couple of million in requests we can’t fill,” Short said.
This evening’s hearing is for outside organizations that normally received city assistance.

Those agencies include the Over 60 Center, which is seeking $20,000; the Chamber of Commerce, which is seeking $106,000, the Humane Society, which is seeking $40,000; the Carthage Public Library, which is seeking $50,000 from the general revenue fund and $55,000 from the parks and storm water fund; the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, which is seeking all of the $125,000 generated by the city’s lodging tax; and the American Legion Baseball, girls softball and youth baseball, each of which is seeking $2,000.

Short said among the items that should generate conversation on Monday is the Humane Society’s request for $40,000, which is twice that group’s 2007 request of $20,000.

Kaylene Cole, Humane Society Board President, said the group now has a budget and a way to track expenses, and past requests from the city have not represented the actual amount it costs the group to serve Carthage.

Short said these requests will take some time to deal with, but they really represent a small portion of the general revenue budget.

On Tuesday, the city’s own departments will come up to bat before the committee and present the requests that will deal with most of the budget.

Among the larger requests from city departments will be $700,000 in capital improvements, which are part of a five-year capital improvement plan.

Short said the city hopes to start two major street widening projects this year. One is to widen Baker Street from Central to Fairview streets and another is widening Hazel Street from Airport Drive to Fairview Street.

Another capital request that will be considered is a new traffic signal for the intersection of Phelps Street and Missouri Highway 571 (Fir Road).

Wednesday’s budget meeting will include requests from Carthage Water and Electric Plant. The committee will also start perfecting the budget Wednesday.

Short said the budget has to go to city council at it’s first June meeting on June 10 and should be finalized at the June 24 meeting to take effect on July 1.