Sedalia snuffs out smoking on government property

The Sedalia City Council approved an ordinance to prohibit tobacco use inside all city facilities and vehicles and reviewed a draft of the city’s fiscal year 2011 budget at its meeting Monday.

Council members unanimously voted to revise its current tobacco policy to ban smoking in any city vehicles or buildings, including the entire City Hall campus.

“What we’re doing here is making this entire campus smoke-free, recognizing this is the primary location the public comes to do business with the city,” said Interim City Administrator Brian Koral.

The few city facilities that allowed smoking in certain rooms will have to assign designated outdoor smoking areas for their employees. Koral said the new policy is aimed at promoting healthier lifestyles for city workers.

“It is part of our health and wellness program to encourage healthy habits in our employees,” said Mayor Elaine Horn.

The new tobacco policy will go into effect April 1.

CLICK HERE to read The Democrat's editorial on the smoking ban

Council members also reviewed a draft of the fiscal year 2011 budget at a work session prior to their meeting. The city projected spending $28.3 million and collecting $22.5 million in all funds over the next year, including $12.8 million in revenue and $14.5 million in expenses for its general fund budget. The city’s projections anticipated no growth in sales tax revenue in the next year.

Despite revenues coming in below budget in several areas over the last year — including sales tax revenue, court fines and interest income — the city projected that reduced departmental spending will result in a more than $470,000 general fund surplus at the end of fiscal year 2010, pushing the general fund balance to $9.14 million.

“Department heads did a fantastic job this year of monitoring their budget as we’ve gone through fiscal year 2010, recognizing that our sales tax has been down and it is a tight fiscal year,” Koral said. “That will allow us again to see some growth in our general fund balance at the end of this year.”

For fiscal year 2011, the city projected a $1.64 million decrease in the general fund balance, dropping it to $7.37 million. However, Koral has noted the city in recent years adopted deficit budgets but operated at a surplus.

Among the expenses in the 2011 budget is about $250,000 to transition Sedalia police officers to a new pension plan, $400,000 for municipal software upgrades and $600,000 for the second phase of the city streetscape project.

The budget draft also included a 50-cent per month increase in residential sanitation fees as well as a 25 percent increase on the commercial side. Last year, residential sanitary fees experienced a $2 per month adjustment.

“One of the priorities of council is keeping the revenue from the sanitation department in line with the expenditures of providing that service,” Koral said. “The other priority the council gave us last year was, instead of waiting four or five years and doing a large $2 adjustment, to incrementally keep it in line with the cost.”

Koral said despite cutbacks in most departments last year, the city has not had to eliminate staff positions. He said personnel expenses will total about $9 million across all city funds in next year’s budget.

“We are maintaining our current staffing levels. We are not reducing positions, requiring people to use leave time or reducing salaries,” Koral said. “The city recognizes its role as an economic engine in the community.”

Council members will have an opportunity to review the budget in the coming weeks before voting to approve it at their March 15 meeting. The budget goes into effect April 1.

The City Council on Monday also awarded bids for server equipment and software for the Fire Department and a dump truck bed for the Street Department.

After soliciting bids to furnish the Fire Department with new server equipment and software, council members approved the purchase of a server enclosure and UPS from Dell Computers for $5,069.40, two firewall appliances from Midwest CompuTech for $2,011 and reporting software from ACS Firehouse Services for $5,285.

Monte Richardson, the city’s information technology manager, said city staff recommended the upgrades in response to new reporting requirements. He said the upgrade will enhance the department’s reporting and tracking capabilities, improve access and reduce labor hours for managing data.

“This way it will be more efficient and more accurate, and bring them up to the 21st century,” Richardson said.

The city received eight bids for a 10-foot dump truck bed, ranging from $5,907 to $12,481.60. At the recommendation of city staff, the City Council accepted the low proposal from Key Hydraulics, of Sedalia.