Benton Courier - Benton council to hear YCAT, budget plans

    The Benton City Council has a full agenda for its 7:00 meeting tonight at Benton Municipal Complex, including addressing who will control and operate the city’s public access channel, Channel 12, and considering a budget for 2010 that cuts costs, eliminates four public safety positions and adds $25 per month to city employees’ health insurance contributions.
   The council will begin by hearing the second reading of an ordinance to purchase a vehicle needed for an inspector for the community development office that will cost about $8,000 after the old vehicle is sold.
   The issue led to heated arguments at last month’s meeting over whether the old vehicle should be repaired or a new one purchased instead.
   But the bigger issues of the evening are likely to be the public access channel and the budget.
   First, the Community Services Committee will recommend that the city annex several small areas of land around the county that are surrounded by land already included in city limits, called “island” annexations.
   Then the Community Services Committtee is expected to recommend that the council approve an ordinance assigning administrative and operational control of the city’s public access channel to YCAT for a period of one year beginning Jan. 1.
   The city would pay YCAT $300 per month for recording and broadcasting its governmental meetings on Channel 12, and YCAT would broadcast the meetings at least five times per week, the proposed contract states.
   YCAT is made up of several former members of Benton Community Access Association, which currently operates Channel 12 and is in the process of moving out of City Hall as its contract to operate Channel 12 expires.
   Several organizations put in bids to operate Channel 12, but the Community Services Committee, which oversees the matter, chose YCAT’s bid over the others to recommend to the full council.
   Next on the agenda are budget issues. First, the council will consider an ordinance allowing for the auction of several old police cars that are no longer in service.
   Second on the list of Finance Committee proposals is a resolution calling for city employees to begin contributing an additional $25 to their health insurance plans. Currently, employees pay nothing toward individual policies and $225 per month for family policies.
   The proposal passed a recent vote in Finance Committee by a vote of 5-3 with one absence and one abstention.
   Next up is the big item of the night: the 2010 operating budget for the city of Benton, coming in at $10.4 million. It is the city’s first officially balanced budget since 2004 and includes cuts totaling about $800,000 after all is said and done, Finance Committee Jerry Ponder has said.
   Officials have said they wanted to be conservative and balance the budget for 2010 because of the stagnant economy and because they want to avoid having to lay off employees if sales tax revenues slow down any further. Many cities in the vicinity have been forced to lay off workers because they are suffering financially, Ponder has noted.
   Mayor Rick Holland noted that the city’s department heads, who he said always do a great job of coming in under budget each year resulting in extra revenue at the end of each year, did an exceptionally good job of helping reduce costs for the 2010 budget by finding items that they could live without this year in order to avoid the possibility of layoffs in the near future.

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