Hopkinsville City Council approved a $43 million budget at Tuesday’s meeting and got an update on recycling in the city.
The spending plan for fiscal year 2022-2023 does not include any proposed tax rate increases of any kind but does include a five percent cost of living increase for city employees. Councilmember Steve Keel says he supports the raises and the stipends for employees that were recently approved, but he would like to have a conversation in the future about what allocations are going to area agencies. He says it’s not that he doesn’t want to lend support to those agencies, it’s that he wants to make sure all bases are covered with city departments first.
Mayor Wendell Lynch says departments are not being asked to make budget cuts, but they were advised to ‘hold the line’, as inflation, gas prices and other expenditures go up.
The operational budget and the $1.8 million capital budget were approved on first-reading.
Council heard an update on the Hopkinsville Solid Waste and the recycling program that was launched in 2018. After operating for a couple of years, the program was halted in 2020 due the pandemic, and Director Tony Sicari was not happy to announce that they will not be able to continue that service due to highly elevated costs.
There were approximately 700 citizens enrolled in the recycling program—Sicari says those cans will be repurposed for other city use. Recycling service will continue through the month of June, but that will end on July 1, and then cans will be collected in the following weeks.