The Cookeville City Council is looking to fund more street paving projects in the next fiscal year, as a spending plan for the next fiscal year continues to take shape.

Budget talks among city leaders continued this week after things kick off earlier this month. A projected increase in sales tax collections -- alibet conservative, council members said -- and a healthy fund balance mean the city can afford to dip into its reserves to complete some much-needed projects. Three options were presented during a work session on Monday by Mike Davidson, finance director for the city, choices that ranged anywhere from $200,000 to $300,000 in additional spending.

And when presented with those options, the council seemed to prefer the one that would allocate more funds toward street paving, rather than toward capital purchases for various departments, like trucks, vehicles and other requested equipment.

"Honestly, that's what people see, is the paving," councilwoman Alma Anderson said. "People will say more things about the roads than they will a million other things that are going on -- good or bad -- in the city. I'll have more people say things to me about the roads than anything else."

Under option 1: City employees would receive a 2-percent cost of living raise, versus the 1.5 percent proposed in the first draft of the budget. The city would also purchase additional equipment, like a $14,000 incinerator for public works; $60,000 for Microsoft Office upgrades in several departments; a vehicle for the new stormwater inspector/public works employee; $15,000 for software originally requested by leisure services, which would allow patrons to enroll in classes and reserve park shelters online; and a $27,900 patrol car for the police department, meaning a total of eight patrol cars would be funded for the 2011-12 fiscal year. Also included in that total: $5,000 for replacement grills at Cane Creek Park, although Davidson said that money could possibly come from the quality of life fund, which gets one cent for every 87 cents collected in property taxes.

Option 2, meanwhile, would include the same equipment purchases, but instead of a 2 percent cost of living increase, there would be a 1.5 percent increase and a change would be made to employees' longevity pay. Currently, the longevity pay plan is based on a maximum of 26 years of service with a payment of $70 per year of service. Davidson said the increase would bump those figures to 30 years and $85 per year of service.

Employees must work for the city for a minimum of five years in order to be eligible for longevity pay, Davidson noted. The payment is made in one lump sum. He also said it would have nearly the same impact on the bottom line as a 2 percent cost of living raise: $66,000-68,000 versus $65,000 with the raises.

"Our goal has been -- ever since I got here -- to get to 30 years and $100 a year, which is what the state of Tennessee gives," he said. "This moves us more in line with the state."

But city council members seemed most interested in option three -- while making their own modifications. As presented, that plan would afford employees either the 2-percent cost of living increase or the longevity pay boost. It would remove the additional equipment purchases and instead dedicate $250,000 more toward street paving.

"There's immediate need on streets," Davidson said. "Right now, our paving budget is half a million dollars for (20)11-12. The third option would let us use some of that fund balance in the general fund to do some additional paving in 2011-12."

Council members said they also wanted to add in the $60,000 Microsoft Office upgrade as well as fund the $20,000 worth of requests from leisure services for the registration software and grills -- requests that could both come from the quality of life fund.

They were also leaning toward offering the original 1.5 percent cost of living raise and upping the longevity pay.

While paving streets would be the more visible to the public eye, there also seems to be a bonafide need.

James Mills, planning director for the city, told the council members that they've done an inventory of all streets in Cookeville as part of the 2010 comprehensive plan. In 2009, streets were rated as either good, fair or poor. In 2010, a "significantly higher percentage of streets" rated on the lower end of that scale as fair or poor.

"That indicates that we've not been keeping up with the paving we need to have done. It's just going to get worse," Mills said. "Jim (Shipley, city manager) and I talked about it, we could probably spend a million dollars a year on paving and still not be where we need to be. But, the point is, if we don't start trying to address it now, we're going to get to the point where it's going to be a significant drain on the budget trying to catch back up."

With the council's suggestions, Davidson said he would go back and change some of the original projected estimates. Even with the additional spending, city leaders were hoping to maintain around $7 million in reserves in the general fund.

The council first began its budget talks last week, talks that will likely continue until a more concrete plan is ready for passage in June. Currently, the 2011-12 figures include no property tax increase for residents.

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