New police cars? More library funding? Black Mountain budget talks begin.

Black Mountain began budget talks for the next fiscal year at a special call meeting March 21. 

Town Manager Josh Harrold and staff went through line items for the governing body, administration, human resources, finance, information technology and police departments at the meeting. There are five more meetings scheduled throughout March and April to continue budget discussions. 

Harrold said this presentation of the budget is what departments are requesting and this can be changed by Town Council as budget discussions continue. 

With the requested budget, all town employees will receive a 5% cost of living adjustment increase. This same increase was suggested for the last fiscal year, but was moved to 4% after discussions. 

For the governing body, the costs of legal professional services and nonprofit contributions are increasing. 

"We have a new attorney now that is proving to be a little more expensive than in the past," Harrold said. "I think we all knew that, so we have increased that $15,000 to cover what we think we're going to spend." 

Harrold said the cost for this year will be close to $80,000. 

In the past, the town has given the Black Mountain Library $12,000 in nonprofit contributions, but since COVID, the amount decreased to $6,000. Harrold said he recommended going back up to the $12,000. 

Police Chief Steve Parker said the department is requesting three vehicles. He said by replacing vehicles each year, the department is able to keep the fleet updated to the goal of vehicles being, at most, eight to nine years old. The three vehicles that would be replaced are a 2010 Ford Taurus and two 2013 Dodge Chargers. 

"There were multiple times we didn't even have vehicles to give people this year because of maintenance issues," Parker said. 

He said there were six vacancies throughout the year, but the department is now fully staffed. Parker said he had to stop training for five months of the year because the department was too short-staffed to send anyone to training. He said not having funds for training also contributed to having to stop training.

Parker said the department also needs to replace Tasers because the the company is no longer updating them. This would come at a cost of $100,000 over five years. 

He said there is a need for support for staff, due to traumatic events they witness in the field. 

"If I had anything that was my legacy, this would be the one thing that I would ask I hope to be my legacy is that we took care of our people," Parker said. 

He is asking for an embedded clinician, something that other municipalities in the area already have, to come in weekly to work with staff to help on a "consistent basis." 

Parker said the cost would be $27,000 for the year, which breaks down to approximately $1,000 per employee. 

He also asked for five new Flock cameras. According to Parker, the cameras has 96 hits in the last year, leading 17 stolen cars and tags being recovered, as well as 19 wanted people. 

"I can't speak enough about them," Parker said. "They're like DNA now. They are one of the greatest things to happen to law enforcement to help increase safety in our community." 

The department currently has five and Parker said he would like a total of 10 cameras to complete the project. The cost for implementation and installation is $18,500. There would be a $13,000 software cost each year, which is included in the $18,500. 

The next budget workshop is March 28 at 8:30 a.m. in Town Hall.