The Martinsville City Council approved its fiscal year 2024-2025 budget at its May 16 meeting on its second reading.
City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides said the proposed budget is $119,702,118.
Ferrell-Benavides said the general fund is approximately $38.1 million.
“Our enterprise fund which consists of refuse, telecom, water utilities, sewer utility, and electric utility represents a total of $38 million as opposed to $40 million last year,” she said.
The special revenue fund is approximately $10 million, and includes stormwater, street fund, Industrial Development Authority (IDA), final allocations for American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), and the elimination of the meals tax which was moved to the general fund.
Ferrell-Benavides said the total school budget for the Martinsville City school system is $32 million, which is up from the $27 million of last year.
The mandated agencies like the Blue Ridge Library, Social Services, Piedmont Community Services (PCS), and Martinsville-Henry County Health Department is around $1.822 million.
Ferrell-Benavides said the citizens community and engagement organizations like ANCHOR, boys and girls clubs, Southside Survivor Response, Southern Area Agency on Aging, and others is $157,969.
Ferrell-Benavides said $227,746 was allocated to the economic development category, which includes the Blue Ridge Airport Authority, Uptown Revitalization, events, Uptown partnerships, West Piedmont Planning District (WPPD), and others.
“Last and certainly not least, tourism. Within this one for tourism, we had Piedmont Arts, Virgnia Cooperative Extension, and Virginia Museum of Natural History, our total contribution is $33,571,” she said.
Council member Kathy Lawson suggested increasing the funds distributed to the Virginia Cooperative Extension.
“You can always approve a pot of money and then appropriate it later,” she said.
The council decided to take more time to decide on how to distribute the funds to the agencies.
“We will increase the pot to accommodate that extra money,” vice-mayor Aaron Rawls said.
In other matters, the council:
*Amended its motion that it approved the allocation of money in the amount of $285,000 for this coming fiscal year for the Virginia Career Works youth employment program.
At the December 19 council meeting, Ferrell-Benavides said the Virginia Career Works presented a proposal to hold this program.
“Following the presentation, funds were identified from ARPA. Initially, $200,000 was allocated, unfortunately they had budgeted the total project which comes to $559,000, which was the amount the program was built on,” she said.
Ferrell-Benavides said Virginia Career Works is now requesting the full allocation to complete the program successfully.
“So, this would be an additional $359,000 from ARPA that they’re asking for, for their program,” she said.
Rawls said when the council initially allocated the funds the highest it was ever at was $400,000.
“Four hundred thousand was the max, I don’t know how we ended up altering that down to $200,000. But we do have significantly less ARPA money than we thought we had remaining, so that additional” funding “is pretty significant. That’s my two cents on that,” he said.
Ferrell-Benavides said she doesn’t know how the council got down to $200,000.
“At the minute, we actually didn’t approve at NCI (New College Institute), we approved when we did the larger presentation. It may have been a possible recommended amount saying, ‘let’s see if they could work with that’ just because we were at the limited amount,” she said.
Ferrell-Benavides added there is currently about $1.5 million left in the APRA account.
While she doesn’t have a detailed explanation for how this situation happened, Ferrell-Benavides said the city did receive an invoice for $559,000.
Mayor LC Jones said his question is where the program will go if the council cuts the funding back to the original $400,000 as Virginia Career Works has already started the program and has 20 children signed up.
“When they sent over the invoice, what the pause was, the money wasn’t available from the start. Once they start, these kids will start internships again and begin getting paid on a monthly basis,” he said.
Jones said one alternative is to allocate funds for one year of the two-year program and then consider it in the budget next year.
“Then try to help garner support to complete the program out,” he said.
If its ARPA funding next year, Ferrell-Benavides said the council would have to decide in September if it will fund the program and then send an advance.
“But we don’t have to make that decision today,” she said.
*Approved an application for excavation/construction/street closure in the city’s right-of-way. It will include a permitting fee of $100 and will be effective immediately. This is an application for anyone doing work in the city’s right-of-way where they are required to fill out a permit that includes giving a calculation as to the amount of asphalt that will be cut or how much dirt will be disturbed. It also requires companies to have insurance and allows the city to look at the company’s traffic control plans.
*Recognized the 50th anniversary of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. and proclaimed May 25 as the Kappa Delta Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. day.
*Discussed the Virginia Municipal League (VML) appointments of the council members. Council member Tammy Pearson was nominated to Community and Economic Development, City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides to Finance, council members Lawrence Mitchell to General Laws, LC Jones to Human Development Education, and Kathy Lawson to Infrastructure.
*Appointed Nelson Evans to the Anchor Group Commission for a term ending December 31, 2027.
*Appointed Cynthia Cindy Frank to the Children’s Services Act (CSA) board.
*Approved giving a $5,000 sponsorship to the Fayette Area Historical Initiative (FAHI) for its upcoming Juneteenth event.
