City Council Pondering Just how To Cut Budget

The Glasgow City Council met for a special budget meeting in the last week to help wrap up their work sessions to finalize plans for the upcoming fiscal year. They looked at slashing the budget in several different departments.

While some extras remained on the budget, like updating the phone system the city currently uses, others were cut, like travel and training that maybe hadn't been used in years prior. The city also had to look at adding more than $70,000 to the budget for repairs to bring the Levee up to standards.

A lot of the discussion was about cutting anything that could be cut, or shifting some of the budget to other funds that maybe weren't being used.

The final budget plan will be reviewed at an upcoming hearing at the city council meeting on Monday, Sept. 15. The hearing will cover the final budget that the city will be looking to approve and the public is invited to attend and speak up on questions or concerns they might have.

Other issues discussed at the city council meeting Sept. 2 included the approval of hiring Karl Krause for taking over Johnny Peterson's position in the city street and maintenance department. Krause had been part of the Glasgow Police Department and had moved to Texas. He'll be back to take the position in October.

The city also approved paying Mike Kaiser $2,200 for the survey and maps for the current Levee and appointing Sharon Adolphson to the board of trustees for the Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID).

Mayor Becky Erickson ended the meeting by inviting the public to the city council chambers on Thursday, Sept. 4, while the Great Northern Development meets to discuss survey results collected about housing in Glasgow.

Erickson stated that this involved the most surveys ever collected in a town for development of a housing plan. The surveys and housing plan are part of a $10,000 grant to find specific areas to improve on and solve some of the housing issues.