Albany commissioners begin looking at 2024 budget

Dollars and sense

ALBANY, Ga. – Money was a major talking point at Tuesday morning’s city commission meeting. As Albany commissioners began looking at the city’s 2024 budget.

In this year’s budget, the city of Albany is looking at over 314 million dollars for the coming year’s budget.

Ward 1 commissioner, Jon Howard says it’s the largest he’s seen in decades on the city commission.

“I was alarmed and not surprised that in almost 30 years that I would be voting on a budget that’s over 315 million dollars,” said Jon Howard, Ward 1 commissioner, City of Albany.

The coming year’s budget has been discussed as what’s putting previous years’ planning into action…

And while there has been some small decline in population, Ward 6 Commissioner, Demetrious Young says it’s for projects like improving the city’s sewer system.

“…Fortunately for us, we have been allocated federal dollars, to take care of that. But that’s a part of the funding that’s coming in. It’s made up of funding and expenditures. So we are going to have some funding coming in,” said Young.

However, while the budget was being explained there was some reservations about the plans discussed in the meeting.

As Commissioner Howard tells us, that with a massive budget like this, they need to take some time to hash out that money over the next few weeks.

“You don’t need questions, you need to just sit down and massage that budget and so I would be in favor that we sit down next week, to go to outline with some of those big department heads like public safety, and especially finance. I wan them to take some time and have those departments come in and have a brief presentation for all of us at the board,” said Howard.

But while some may draw concern about a higher budget, the city commission wants Albany residents to know one thing…

They’re not going to be raising rates.

“We do not anticipate a rate increase for our utility customers, and we do not anticipate a tax rate increase for homeowners,” said Howard.

While the approval of the budget is still over a month away, the city commission is going to be taking the next few weeks to comb over every detail and every last cent is going where it needs to.

The Albany City Commission will be holding a public hearing about the budget on Tuesday, June 6th.

Brian Roche reporting.

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