Budget Meeting Set for Tonight

The budget approval process continues tonight for the Hyattsville City Council, which gathers in special session to discuss next fiscal year's budgets for the Public Works Department and the Community and Economic Development Department budgets. 

The proposed Public Works overall budget, which funds things from parking and code compliance to street maintenance and sanitation operations, comes in at $3.7 million dollars, a $375,000, 11 percent increase over its current anticipated budget. 

Much of that increase comes from a 83 percent increase in the budget for Public Works administration, jumping from an anticipated $246,000 budget to a proposed $451,000 line item. 

That increase, in turn, is the result of increased proposed expenditures for contracted services to oversee municipal public works projects like the renovations to the Arcade building on Gallatin Street. The city has budgeted $246,000 for contracted services in 2013, up from a mere $26,000 in the current budget year. 

"It's not the idea that we'd have these permanently," said Mayor Marc Tartaro in an interview. "The idea is to fund that management component as we bring these projects online and are getting them built."

The proposed budget for Community and Economic Development is $243,300, a 5.3 percent increase over that department's current budget.