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Vienna City Council passes budget

Approves changes to health insurance, paving appropriation

By Tyler Bennett 3 min read

VIENNA -- The Vienna City Council approved its Fiscal Year 2021-2022 budget, adding two amendments to the total budget during a special meeting Thursday evening.

The two amendments include an increase in the employee share on the city's health insurance to 8 percent and to offset the amount needed to be transferred from capital reserve to satisfy the $850,000 paving appropriation, said City Attorney Russ Skogstad.

"I think to come out of a $10 million budget and only have to make two amendments, I think we did really well with it. I think our finance director (Amy Roberts) prepared a budget that was ready to go," Mayor Randy Rapp said. "I think the fact that our council decided that they wanted to put additional money into the street paving benefits everyone. All in all, I think it's a budget that we can live with and we've still got flexibility, and we'll just move forward."

When first going over potential changes at the start of the meeting, City Recorder Melissa Elam said she didn't want to see any money taken away from the street department, but to increase the budget because the streets is something that affects every citizen in the city.

"One of the things that people love about Vienna is its ease of getting around. There are safe neighborhoods, there isn't a neighborhood that I would feel unsafe walking in or going out by myself in," Elam said. "We have so many people who walk, run, push strollers, ride their bikes, it's one of the biggest draws to our city."

While Rapp said he is fine with the idea of increasing the streets budget, he did say that they could also use the $2.69 million federal money thanks to the CARES Act.

Rapp did say the funds have to be used on the city's infrastructure, water, sewer lines and stormwater. To repair the infrastructure, the city would have to tear up the streets to get to it. If the city does that, Rapp said they could use the CARES funding in repaving those roads.

The amendment was approved in a unanimous decision.

Recommended by Council Member Kim Williams, the employee share will be increasing from 6 percent to 8 percent.

Depending on the levels of plans, single workers will pay $68 a month compared to $30 and ones with a family will increase $129 to $174 per month, an average increase between $38 and $40. Despite the slight increase, Williams thinks that the plan is extremely good and workers will still be saving money when comparing other companies' insurance plans.

Council Member Mike Elam agreed with Williams' plan, saying that along with a $1 an hour increase, workers will be gaining money, not losing it.

However, Council Member Jim Leach, who attended over the phone, was not in favor of the increase.

"I think that at a time, particularly with COVID, the CARES Act and everything we have," Leach said, "I just think it's the wrong message to our employees to say we're going to penalize you now when you've worked your way through this."

The amendments were approved 5-2, as was the final budget.

You can contact Tyler Bennett at tbennett@newsandsentinel.com

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