City, Municipal Authority Approve Budgets

In addition to regular business, budgets for the 2020-2021 fiscal year were approved at the City Council and Municipal Authority meetings on Tuesday. City Administrator Jason McPherson said that the budgets reflect the belt-tightening precipitated by decreased revenue in recent months.

“The operational budgets will be tight based on projections of the fallout of the pandemic,” he said. “Still, there will be little to no loss in service to the citizens. The employees of the City of Marlow continue to find ways to excel in tough economic times.”

The General Fund budget of $2,159,120 reflects a 2.4% increase from the 2019-2020 fiscal year budget, which is due mainly to employee expenses. The Marlow Municipal Authority budget saw a 9.7% decrease from the previous year because of cuts in operation expenses.

Planned projects for the 2020-2021 fiscal year include:

• Renovation of cemetery office building

• Electronic mapping of cemetery

• Phase 2 of the transmission pole replacement project

• Street patching project

• Water pressure meters for the automated metering system (water main leak detection)

• $25,000 allocated for the removal of dilapidated structures

Planned major purchases for the 2020-2021 fiscal year:

• Mower for cemetery

• Two finish mowers for streets

• Computers for the Public Safety Building

• Five sets of bunker gear for the fire department

• Pickup for the Electric Department and Water Department

• One new police unit

A few of the planned major purchases were approved during the meeting, including ten new computers for the Police-Fire (Public Safety) building to replace the old computers that were running an unsupported operating system as well as a 2020 Dodge Charger police unit. McPherson said that he had planned to wait to purchase the police unit; however, there is typically a several-month wait for delivery of those vehicles and this one will be delivered in approximately four weeks.

The City Council and MMA Trustees also renewed the lease-purchase agreements for multiple vehicles and declared several vehicles as surplus. McPherson said that he was working with Graham Auctioneers to arrange for sale of the surplus vehicles at auction.