At their meeting Tuesday afternoon, members of Camden City Council passed second and final reading of the city’s proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget, which takes effect Saturday.
The $56 million budget represents a 16.5% increase over the FY 23 budget. City Manager Jon Rorie said revenues are expected to show a slight increase while operational expenditures are projected to be at or near current year levels. Retiree health insurance costs are being decreased by almost one third — going from $528,433 in the current budget year to $349,452 in the FY 24 budget.
Changes to the city’s paving fund include a 5 mil increase from 10.2 mils to 15.2 mils, dedicated to the fund.
The city of Camden’s fuel adjustment surcharge will be set at $0.015, or 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour and includes a 5% electric rate increase.
The following other changes to the utility fund will become effective on all bills dated Sept. 1, but apply to all usage from July 2023:
• The addition of a monthly $3 meter fee to fund the replacement of approximately 16,400 outdated electric and water meters.
• A $6.50 per month increase for per 1,000 kilowatt hours (kwh) of electric usage.
• Increases of $0.37 per 750 gallons of water usage for in-city customers and $0.74 per 750 gallons for out-of-city customers.
• Increases of $0.65 per 750 gallons of sewage for in-city customers and $1.30 per 750 gallons of gallons for out-of-city customers.
The utility fund’s portion of the budget is $39 million.
Councilman Jeffrey Graham said he is excited about the budget and what it does for the staff and community as the city reinvests its dollars.
“I’m excited about the staff and what they’ve done and all the hard work they’ve put in to help us have a balanced budget that puts our employees up front,” Graham said. “This is a tough time in government all across our state and country, but this opportunity we have this year is to really invest back into ‘us’ as a community and I’m looking forward to this because it matters. These are things that we’ve put off for a long time so I’m looking to voting for this budget and putting our staff back in charge of making these things happen and improve our community. I’m grateful for council spending a lot of time looking into this and many other things … I’m grateful (for a budget) that makes us look forward instead of just backwards.”
Councilman Stephen Smoak agreed.
“One of the things I’m most grateful for is the way we have chosen to invest in infrastructure needs and equipment,” Smoak said. “I think we’ll better equip our staff and front line folks to do their jobs by virtue of decisions being made in the budget. Also, the fact that it addresses things like meters in the utility department; that’s something that’s needed to be done for a while. I’m just pleased with the budget overall and appreciate all the hard work.”
Councilman Hamilton Boykin thanked Rorie for being “the crash test dummy” for the budget.
“You’ve had to take the brunt of the negativity and it’s much appreciated,” Boykin said. “It’s long past time that we made some tough decisions and here we are.”
Mayor Alfred Mae Drakeford expressed her gratitude with how the budget was laid out and presented.
“We had opportunities to ask questions if we didn’t understand certain things the budget included. So thank you to Jon and staff for the many, many, many hours that went into preparing this budget,” Drakeford said.
Council member Joanna Craig praised staff for coming up with “creative and innovative ways of doing things.
“The vision Mr. Rorie has … is ‘if you want to do something, you pay for it now or, more importantly, how are you going to pay for it 10 years from now to keep it going,’ ” Craig said. “A lot in this budget is complex, but I appreciate that it was presented in a way that everybody could understand it.”
On a related matter later in the meeting, Rorie provided an Infrastructure Management Services (IMS) Pavement and Asset Management presentation on plans to rehab or resurface city streets and roads in the new budget year.
“This is something we have been talking about for months and is built into the budget you just approved,” Rorie told council. “I want to talk about how this is going to evolve.”
He said the city had an assessment performed for more than 90 miles of roadway throughout the city.
“What we found out is that we’re not responsible for a lot of those roadways, but a lot of people don’t know that when they focus on ‘my’ street. Sometimes ‘my’ street is actually a state road, so we have that whole dimension to deal with,” Rorie said.
The IMS analysis shows which streets are state roads and which belong to the city, he said.
“Of those 90 miles of roadways, the state is responsible for 57 miles, while the city must maintain 33 miles,” he said.
Rorie noted that a problem occurs when there are some streets where the state is responsible for a small section of the street while the city has to maintain the rest, or vice versa.
“This is critical because you’re going to see, in the near future, where the state has decided to pave some portions of a street,” Rorie said. “The problem is, you can’t pave portions of a road and exclude other portions. So, we need to get in front of this and let people know what we’re trying to accomplish here. We need to think about how we’re going to collaborate with SCDOT (S.C. Department of Transportation) and how we’re going to execute this paving plan in some type of partnership going forward.”
Smoak asked if it would be possible for the city to “trade” portions of roadways with DOT.
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Rorie responded, “and something we need to look into.”
The IMS analysis provided the city with a Paving Construction Index (PCI) that rates the general condition of a pavement section from 0-100, with “0” being the worst condition and “100” being the best, he added.
“We need to target rehabbing or resurfacing these roads somewhere in the 70-80 marking,” Rorie said. “This analysis allows us to start making decisions and financial plans about how we’re going to manage these assets.”
He noted that in 2024, the state is planning to pave just .15 miles out of the 57 miles of roadway South Carolina is responsible for in Camden
So (for example), the state plans to pave .11 miles (of Rutledge Street) from Campbell to Church Street, but not the rest of Rutledge because that’s our responsibility. This is where we need to start thinking about how we’re going to collaborate with the state to get it all done,” Rorie said.
He suggested “piggybacking” on SCDOT work that is currently being done DeKalb Street (U.S. 1).
“If they’re already here, we can take advantage of that,” Rorie said, adding that some of city’s streets that need rehabbing the most are portions of Fair Street, Monument Square, Pine Street and Rutledge Street.
“As we look towards the future, we have to decide which roads to pave first,” he told council. “In the budget, we have asked for a 5-mil tax increase for all properties in the city and that means we’ll have 15.2 mils dedicated to pave roads. But it’s not just about the asphalt; it’s about the signage, the sidewalks.”
That 15.2 mils generates around $717,000, Rorie said. There’s also $1.4 million in the paving fund as carryover from FY 23, he noted, for a total of $2.09 million. The city plans to spend 10% on sidewalks, 10% on signage and 80% on rehabbing roadways this year, Rorie said.
“We need to spend every penny of these funds each year reinvesting in this community,” he said.
In other business:
• Council approved a resolution authorizing financial policies for the funding of community projects, programs and services. The resolution would limit annual funding for such projects to not exceed 2.5 mils’ worth of existing millage. These funds are provided to public agencies and nonprofit community organizations for one-time community, social, environmental, cultural or recreational needs (that) serve a lawful public purpose. Requests must be made by March of the previous fiscal year and, if selected, must then request the actual funds by April 15 of the new fiscal year.
• Council heard from Lenora Gamble-Pearson during public comment. Pearson shared several concerns, including one about city roads that are currently being repaired by SCDOT. “My family has worked in construction for 40 plus years,” she said. “I am not pleased with the road work they’re doing here. It’s shoddy.” Pearson also told council the city needs “more family-friendly businesses and organizations coming to Camden—we have enough ABC stores.”
• Council gave second/final reading of an ordinance authorizing the distribution of the city’s Local Option Sales Tax revenue.
• Council approved second/final reading of an ordinance selling 1523 Bradley Road, 1710 and 1716 Campbell St., 609 and 814 Chesnut St., 1304 Highland Ave., 1115 Smyrl Circle, and 1710 and 1719 Wylie St. under the Neighborhood Improvement Program.
