Othello adds officer, parks and rec director
OTHELLO - A police officer and recreation director are two of the additions to Othello's proposed 2012 budget
The city council approved adding the positions to the city's $4 million 2012 general fund budget. The general fund includes police, administration, planning, building and code enforcement salaries, along with funding to the fire district and parks.
The council approved roughly $68,000 in salary and benefits for an additional officer. Police Chief Steve Dunnagan made the request.
The department acts as a training ground for officers, who often move to other departments with better pay, and the top five people in the department are eligible to retire, Dunnagan explained. It takes about nine months to get an officer ready to start patrolling on their own.
"The police department is always working behind because it takes so long to get an officer up and running," he said. "This is something that was proposed several years ago when consultants came in."
Presently the department has two officers in the academy and a sergeant retiring at the end of the year, Dunnagan said.
"We average about one vacancy per year," he said. "So we're adding another position to fill up that one vacancy a year ... If the sergeant is going to retire it's going to take six or seven months to get that replacement, so that will be $60,000, $70,000 that we won't be paying."
Along with the new position, the council also approved $67,000 for purchasing two new police cars.
The council agreed to creating a new park and recreation director position for $61,527 in salary and benefits.
Councilmember Marc Spohr questioned if the city also needed to hire a pool manager as well, saying the director should be able to handle both jobs.
Mayor Tim Wilson asked Public Works Director Terry Clements whether the pool manager needs to be at the pool often.
Clements said she manages lifeguards and concessions sales.
"My question is are we going to tie up the parks and rec director so much doing that kind of business, instead of pursuing the types of things we heard in the presentation by the chamber," Wilson said. "The only thing I worry about is we haven't really made up a job description yet."
Spohr wanted to make sure the director has enough to do, he said.
"We're going from zero to 110 (mph) here. We haven't had a park and rec director here for 20 years," he said.
The city increased its budget for the Fourth of July fireworks to $10,000 from $2,500. The suggestion came from Wilson after a request for funding from the chamber for more funding.
"We were basically told the chamber cannot do this. We give them $14,000, $15,000, $16,000 every year and they turn around and spend $5,000 of that money to take care of the fireworks," he said. "I really think this is a small amount of our budget and we get a big bang from it."
Councilmember Ken Johnson agreed with Wilson, saying about 4,000 people attended the fireworks last year, and people look forward to it.
Spohr disagreed, saying it wasn't the best value for taxpayers money, suggesting raising the amount to $4,000.
"There should be some self-sufficiency in that with collections and donations," he said. "It shouldn't be straight from the tax dollars."
Councilmember Charles Garcia felt they can't keep asking businesses for money, saying the businesses are stretched thin as it is.
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