The Garland town budget has been amended to add $5,000 to the fire department’s original spending plan for 2024-25.

During talks for the 2024-25 fiscal year, the fire department’s budget was at $23,000. Commissioner Jo Strickland then brought that figure down to $15,000 when she reworked the budget to allow for a lower tax rate. Her reasoning in cutting the budget was because the town’s fire department would be receiving $170,600 from Sampson County.

The budget, with that change, was finalized during the June 20 meeting, but a special budget meeting that took four days later, on June 24, brought up the issue again.

Commissioner Anthony Norris, who was not present at the June 20 meeting, attended on June 24 and was upset about the finalized budget for the fire department and the final tax rate, but Mayor Austin Brown quickly shut that concern down.

“I think you did a disservice not showing up to vote for the fire department to get $26,000,” he told the commissioner briefly at the June 24 meeting.

No action was taken during that meeting to change the budget.

The next time anything about the fire department was brought up was during the July 2 Board of Commissioners meeting when Norris was supposed to do a “presentation of fire department,” but it was not ready by the time of the meeting so the discussion was pushed back.

At Thursday’s work session, the board voted to add $5,000 back to the fire department budget by reorganizing other places in the budget. What was to be reorganized was not clear and efforts to reach the board members after the meeting were unsuccessful. Thursday’s vote was passed by Strickland, Brown and Commissioner Ralph Smith Jr. The other two commissioners, Norris and Mayor Pro-Tem Timothy Blackburn, recused themselves from the vote because they are on the fire department .

“It was just to put personnel back at the station,” Norris stated after the meeting about the $5,000 addition. “Right now, we use the money that comes from down here for funding one to two people a day, sometimes five, sometimes seven days a week. But we try to keep it every day to the week. We also had to pull funding from the county, but it offsets it just a little bit.”

Deputy Town Clerk

The wait for a new deputy town clerk has ended with the recent hire of Brooke Jordan.

The commissioners spent almost an hour in closed session Thursday night interviewing three possible candidates. Once closed session ended, the board unanimously voted to hire Jordan as the new deputy town clerk.

According to Town Clerk Meagan Daughtry, Jordan will start Sept. 3.

The previous deputy town clerk, Ramona Arias, quit last month along with the former town clerk Shauna’ Harper. Harper cited a “hostile work environment” for why both her and Arias left.

Water Bill Policy

Confusion over the water bill policy led to commissioners voting to make an official change to the policy.

Daughtry said two residents had brought concerns to her after they were charged a late fee for not paying the water bill before Aug. 10, which landed on a Saturday. The question then came up as to whether or not residents should be allowed to pay their bill before 5 p.m. the following business day, or if they would have to pay before the 10th if it was on a weekend.

“There are two places people can drop off their bills if the office is closed,” Strickland said, pointing out the drop boxes that exist in the parking lot and hanging next to the door.

Mayor Brown countered saying that the penalties would still be taken out at 9 a.m. that Monday if they weren’t paid for by then, which Mayor Pro Tem Blackburn backed up saying that the building opens at 9 a.m. and there wouldn’t be time to put in the bills before the penalties would be taken out.

The commissioners talked about allowing the residents to have the following business day to pay their water bill, and that there would be no penalties as long as it came in before 5 p.m. The motion passed 3-1 with Commissioner Strickland against the new policy.

Mayor Brown told the commissioners that an ordinance amendment would have to be drafted and voted on at the next meeting in order to add it to the town’s ordinance.