Selma mayor proposes combining departments, increasing property taxes

Mayor James Perkins Jr. wants to consolidate seven departments, and he wants to ask citizens to vote to increase property taxes, Perkins said at a public budget hearing July 5.

Perkins said that he will present a budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 to the Selma City Council on July 7. He said it should take the council about a week to digest the 100-page budget, then the mayor and his department heads will go over the budget with the Council.

The City Council and the Mayor agreed in May that would have a budget approved by Aug. 1.

At the budget hearing July 5, Perkins said that he proposes consolidating the Public Works, Cemetery, Public Buildings, Inert Landfill and Parks and Recreation departments into a Public Services Department. There would be one director reporting to the mayor.

The proposed budget also calls for moving the Tax and License Department into the Finance Department under the direction of the finance director. The director’s position in the Tax and License Department is currently vacant.

Perkins also proposes merging the Code Enforcement Department, which has a director and one part-time code enforcement officer, into the Selma Police Department. That would allow all the city’s police officers to write citations for code enforcement violations, he said.  

Perkins told the Selma Sun that the department heads included in the proposed mergers “are behind” the changes.

The total budget is about $22.6 million. That amount can be covered for the upcoming fiscal year by existing revenue and by using the last $2 million in federal American Rescue Plan funds and another $2 million from budget surplus.

More from this section

Tirante topples top seed Shelton to reach Houston ATP semi-finals

Trump urges Bruce Springsteen boycott in social media rant

Supreme Court ruling on Colorado conversion therapy case is not a clear win for conservatives

But to make the budget balance in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, 2024, the city will need another source for that $4 million. Toward that end, Perkins said the 2023-2024 budget includes $100,000 in the city clerk’s budget to pay for a special election for a property tax increase.

Perkins said he will propose increasing the property tax from 27 mills to 54 mills. This would increase the city property tax on a $50,000 home from $130 to $270 a year. He said if citizens approve the property tax increase, garbage services could be brought back into the city rather than being outsourced, so citizens “will not get another garbage bill.”

Perkins said that if the city doesn’t get additional revenue, “we have to start laying folks off.” The situation is made even more dire because a bond payment has increased three-fold, and the city can’t refinance the debt because the city does not have a credit rating. The credit rating was allowed to lapse under a previous administration.

Perkins presented a chart that showed that other Alabama cities have higher property tax rates than does Selma. Perkins acknowledged that the cities he was showing are larger than Selma, but he said he wanted to show that cities that are growing are investing in city government.  

“It’s time for Selma to step up,” Perkins said. “We don’t have to look the way we do. But we’ve gotta pay for it. I’m hoping the Council will give the public an opportunity to decide.”

Perkins said that people ask him why Selma can’t be more like Tuscaloosa or Opelika. Tuscaloosa has a millage rate of 51.5 and for Opelika it’s 54 mills, he said. “We cannot operate on a preCOVID budget,” Perkins said. “We’ve got to change. That what we’re talking about here.”

Here are some other points from the budget hearing:

• About 46% of the city’s budget is devoted to the Police Department, Fire Department and the Municipal Court Department.
• The Public Works Department is supposed to have 75 employees. It has 24, up from 14 before the city council increased the pay for laborers to $12 an hour.
• The budget includes a $5,000 incentive for city employees to buy homes in the city. Perkins said it will help recruit and retain employees, especially police officers, while helping grow the population.
• The budget calls for completing the left wing of the amphitheater by the fourth quarter of the fiscal year.
• The Parks and Recreation Department plans to increase its offerings by 35%. Merging the department into the Public Services Department will free the department from spending so much of their time cutting grass at the parks.
• The Fire Department wants to hire enough firefighters to open the Woodrow Avenue fire station. The department currently has 56 firefighters. They need 80 to be fully staffed.
• Perkins said that he is looking at ways to collect more revenue from the police jurisdiction, areas that are outside the city limits and therefore don’t pay city taxes but are covered by Selma’s Police and Fire departments. Perkins said the city spent over $1 million on calls outside the city limits but collected less than $50,000.
• The Cemetery Department, which would become part of the Public Service Department, plans to pave roadways in Harrison Cemetery.
• Sales tax makes up more than half of the city’s budget.
• Fewer than half of the properties in the city are occupied by the owner of the property.
• A copy of the budget will be available on the city’s Facebook page by the end of the week.