City Council approves $180.5 million budget and $179K for GSES addition water & fire lines
By John Mullen
At the Nov. 14 council meeting, Finance Director Cindy King presented a $180.5 million budget and it was accepted by a vote of the council, and Council approved a bid tgo expand water lines to serve a new eight-classroom addition to Gulf Shores Elementary School.
“First of all, I’d like to thank the department heads, the finance committee, the mayor for your help with this year’s budget,” King said. “It went pretty smoothly. I really appreciate all of that.”
King projects the city will take in $181.4 million in revenues but the expenses will be about $1 million less. In the general fund budget for day-to-day operations like fire, police, public works, recreation, finance, building, the executive office and planning and zoning projects $65.7 million for revenues and expenses of $62.9 million.
“This is a fantastic project,” Mayor Robert Craft said. “We receive awards on it just about every year. It’s amazing the in-depth knowledge you gain here in this budget and the strategies and plans for the city.”
For the past 12 years, the finance department received the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award from the Government Finance Officers Association.
In the new budget, Gulf Shores is looking to add four new full-time positions and one part-time position.
Several capital improvement projects are also in the proposed 2023 budget for a total of $96.9 million and those projects include Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development or BUILD grants as well as Restore Act grants. The projects include:
Beach Boulevard Improvements – Highway 182 $200,000; Medical Village Phase 2 Signal $300,000; Pedestrian Bridge construction $8.9 million; Hwy 59 Widening construction $5.3 million; County Road 6 West $314,227; Waterway East Extension $12.2 million; East Canal Realignment $765,075; Fourth street bridge and one pedestrian bridge $500,000; Coastal Gateway Boulevard to County Road 6 Connector Road $1.8 million; Waterway West Boulevard $3.5 million; Walking District Parking/Streetscape $1.1 million; Fort Morgan Road Access Management $250,000
The new budget continues to grow the reserve and sets a target of $46 million which is 70 percent of the general fund and an increase of $1.26 million over 2022. Currently, Gulf Shores has double A ratings from Moody’s and S&P and the higher status lets the city borrow money at lower rates.
The bid to expand water lines to serve a new eight-classroom addition to GSES came in at an initial cost of about $255,000 but with only one bid coming back on the job officials were able to bring the price down.
“Tuesday, Oct. 25 we had one bid received for this and it came in roughly about $255,000,” Public Works Director Noel Hand said. “Since we only had one bidder, we were able to negotiate that down to the $179,380.”
Hand recommended at the Nov. 7 city council work session the city hire W.R. Mitchell Contractor for the lower amount. The council approved the contract at the Nov. 14 regular session. The addition will be adjacent to the recently opened STEAM lab at the elementary school.
“It’s a fire line and a domestic water line for the Gulf Shores City Schools for the eight-classroom addition,” Hand said. “In order to do this, we have to loop the fire line which we did during the building of the STEAM lab up to a portion. Now we’re going to connect it to Dolphin so it will be required from (Fire Marshal) George Surrey to be able to loop the fire line system. The existing water line, the domestic that feeds this eight-classroom addition, didn’t have enough capacity to feed this building. We’re going to have to go from Dolphin back to the eight-classroom addition.”
Dolphin Avenue runs between the high school campus and the middle and elementary schools and the lines will have to go under the roadway there. A change in the project there helped get the price down, Hand said.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to get this started during Thanksgiving break so we don’t disrupt service to the existing high school,” Hand said. “We’ll have to cut that water. We tried to bore underneath the road but one of the significant savings came when we decided to open cut the road and then we’ll pave that back.”
Putting in the fire line will cost $101,935 and the domestic water line will be $77,445 for the $179,380 total to be paid out of $150 million loan the city recent took out. The money will be used school capital improvements including a new high school on Coastal Gateway Boulevard.
Also on Nov. 14, the council considered an ordinance to provide annual funding for the Gulf Shores Board of Education and its plan to pay it back. The city borrowed $17 million in 2020 for school improvements at the existing campuses and $150 million in 2022 for both existing and new high school campus improvements. Per the proposed ordinance, the school board will pay $1 million a year toward the $17 million loan and $9.4 million a year on the $150 million loan.
During the meeting, the council also:
• Passed an ordinance to provide annual funding for the Gulf Shores Board of Education and its plan to pay it back. The city borrowed $17 million in 2020 for school improvements at the existing campuses and $150 million in 2022 for both existing and new high school campus improvements. Per the ordinance, the school board will pay $1 million a year toward the $17 million loan and $9.4 million a year on the $150 million loan.
• Updated the list of banks that qualify as depositories for public funds for deposits, investing and lending.
• Reappointed Morgan Szapiel and Susan Brush to the Library Advisory Board and Councilman Jason Dyken to the Library Board.
• Signed a contract with W.R. Mitchell for domestic water and fire line for the new eight-classroom addition at Gulf Shores Elementary School for $179,380