It's back to business for city government in Valley Park, despite a failed vote on a proposed budget for the new fiscal year which began July 1st.
Meeting by video-conference call on Tuesday morning, aldermen narrowly turned down the controversial spending plan that was approved out of committee but had been unable to make it through the full board.
At issue is a 5% raise for Valley Park employees and how to pay for it.
"Without a raise, given inflation, we are essentially asking [employees] to take a pay cut," alderman Elijah Braswell.
Then came a suggestion from alderman Eddie Walker.
"I'd like to make a motion to extend the past current budget two weeks, so that the aldermen can get together, look at the finances together as a group, understand where they want to pull the money from for raises, and come up with a plan," Walker proposed. "Our city workers deserve to be on the job. Our residents deserve the services we provide."
The motion was approved by unanimous vote.
At least one more meeting of that finance committee will be held to provide those details and a venue for discussion on the budget proposal. The meeting will take place within the two week extension and members of the public were told they'll be given sufficient notice.
"Despite already having numerous open and publicly posted committee meetings that these aldermen chose not to attend, we will now have more," Mayor Chandra Webster said in a statement. "The same numbers will be reviewed and the same budgetary constraints will be re-explained to the aldermen who again, failed to attend for the last 2 months."
That committee meeting is set for June 9th.
Mayor Webster added, "It will be interesting to see if the aldermen who chose to ignore the last 2 months of meetings will now show up and be prepared to intelligently and more importantly, honestly, discuss the budgetary issues the City must address."
In the meantime, the Mayor says all city-provided services, including trash collection, have resumed.
