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Friday, June 21, 2019

City Council approves budget with $200K for sewers, $50K for curb extensions and many other additions

The City of Midway's budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 is the probably the largest in the town's history, with General Fund appropriations of $1.9 million and a projected surplus of $488,601.

"It's likely the biggest ever," Mayor Grayson Vandegrift said as the City Council approved the budget on a 4-0 vote in an eight-minute special meeting Thursday. Members Sara Hicks and Kaye Nita Gallagher were absent, but they had attended all three workshops at which the council tweaked the budget Vandegrift had proposed.

The budget has been boosted mainly by increased occupational taxes on payrolls and net profits, mainly from the Midway Station industrial park. The council has lowered property taxes and water rates in the past year.

Holding up the budget, the mayor said, "This, as much as anything, is a policy document. What this shows is that our policy focuses on infrastructure."

The biggest infrastructure item is $200,000 for a project to examine and clean out the old sewer lines on the east side of town and see where repairs and replacements are needed. $50,000 is budgeted for curb extensions, or "bulb-outs" on Winter Street at the intersections of Bruen and Stephens streets, to help slow traffic and increase pedestrian safety.

The plan has $40,000 for interest payments on Midway Station, which are no longer made by the developer who gave up his option on the property, but the city and the Woodford County Economic Development Authority are hoping property sales will eliminate the need for interest payments.

The budget also adds $10,000 for new signs; $5,000 for new City Hall computers; $5,000 for the Court Appointed Special Advocate program, which has come to the county with the help of the Fiscal Court and the Versailles City Council; $2,000 for local churches' backpack meal program for needy children; and about $11,000 to join the Woodford County geographic information system, which Vandegrift said would help track infrastructure.

The budget includes $10,000 and $15,000, respectively, for repairs and maintenance on the firehouse, up from $5,000 and $10,000 in the current year; and $1,000 for the Woodford County Chamber of Commerce, up from $500. The Versailles Police Department will get $27,000 more as the city shares in the one-time cost of computer and telephone upgrades to the department, which patrols all of Woodford County. Under a contract, Midway pays 4.25 percent of the department's budget.

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