Mount Olive adopts budget with no fanfare
By Bonnie Edwards
Published in News on June 9, 2004 2:04 PM
MOUNT OLIVE -- The town board adopted next year's $4.3 million budget without any comment from the public Monday night.
Nobody spoke during a hearing, and the vote was unanimous to adopt the budget. It included no increases in taxes or fees for services.
Mount Olive's budget is divided into five funds for the coming fiscal year. It is about $30,000 less than this year's.
The $2.44 million general fund includes a 5 percent pay increase for all town employees and salary adjustments for 15 police officers. That places the starting salary for a police officer at $24,600, an increase of 7.5 percent. Town employees will pay a higher deductible on health insurance in the proposed budget, but lengthy stays in the hospital will be less expensive. The deductible goes from $500 a year to a one-time deductible of $2,000.
The water and sewer fund this year had $1.56 million in revenues and $1.44 million in expenditures, but the surplus can't be moved into the general fund. The $118,000 difference will be used to start paying off the loan for sewer upgrades.