By Faith Callens, For the Tribune
CLAY — City Manager Ronnie Dixon told the council on Tuesday, May 10, about the city’s account balances being in “good shape” and how the city funds shouldn’t be used to buy asphalt right now due to increasing gas prices.
“We have quite a bit of money in paving, in supplement and in road taxes where it has to be used for paving, but as you can imagine with diesel fuel over five dollars a gallon, asphalt is high as it’s been in the last 15 years right now, so we are being very judicious, and we are patching right now rather than paving these entire roads,” Dixon said.
Mayor Charles Webster said patching the roads right now would be cost-effective for the city and the cost of patching the roads is about ten percent of what it would cost to pave the road.
“Hopefully, patching the road would save us some money until the pricing of gas comes back down,” Webster said.
Dixon also mentioned to the council about a paving quote that was received on one of the city’s roads and said the cost was almost three quarters higher than the average pricing it would have been six months ago.
“We will maintain the roads, but right now, it’s just not the time to be buying asphalt,” Dixon said.
Dixon also confirmed to the council that the issue would not only affect the purchase of asphalt at this time but other transporting materials such as concrete even if the council decided to pay for the materials at the same price that was given six months ago.
The city’s current account balances are:
- General Fund – $1,906,778.99
- Vehicle registration – $21,664.52
- Contractor bonds – $155,935.16
- Capital fund – $1,687,899.62
- .45 cent gas fund – $180,985.71
- .7 cent gas fund-28,266.06
- Rebuild Alabama gas fund– $151,931.75
- Rebuilding fund-$332,656.23
- Paving and Supplement fund – $236,840.98
- Reserve fund – $1,750,000
- BB&T Fund – $11,596.88
- Ballpark Income – $50,826.17
- Ball Park expenses – $40,078.06
Other News
The council approved Ordinance 2022-01, a code of inspections that allowed the city to adopt the national building code that is used by other surrounding cities to keep the city’s building codes and policies updated.
The next council meeting is Tuesday, May 24.