Mayor, council find common ground with financial initiatives

By Joseph M. Morgan

joseph@southerntorch.com

RAINSVILLE, Ala.—The Rainsville City Council and mayor were able to find common ground Monday night at the city’s regularly scheduled council meeting. The council offered unanimous support for each of the three separate initiatives brought forth by Mayor Nick Jones that he believes will save significant dollars for the city.

The first initiative Jones introduced was a recommendation that the city consider hiring an outside insurance expert to assess the city’s current insurance policies and offer insight in terms of suggesting policy adjustments to increase and/or decrease current coverage levels as needed. Jones said a representative from the company, Aronov, has briefly looked over existing city policies and believes that there is potential for significant savings by making policy adjustments.

“Rainsville currently does not have an outside insurance agent or expert who is acting on our behalf,” Jones said. “The consultant with whom I spoke specializes in analyzing municipal policies and offering insight and modifications to help local governments save money and ensure that each policy is appropriate in size and scope.”

Jones said the company is offering a one-year “trial period” to see if the relationship would be a good fit for both parties. “What concerns me is that we don’t have an insurance professional that’s in our corner so to speak,” Jones said. “Aronov would come in and look at everything—liability, property, workmen’s comp. Each year we pay almost $200,000 in insurance premiums—large portion of budget.”

The company has offered the one-year deal at a cost to the city of 5 percent of the cost of each premium. “I think it would be a good thing to look into—to have an advocate that could be a go-between," Rainsville Councilman David Holt said. "I think it’s a good idea to pursue it. I'd like to see a contract before we decide to make sure we’re all on the same page, but I’d be in favor of it. I think it would be a wise use of our money to have a 3rd party advocate."

The second measure Jones recommended was a potential restructure of the city works department. Jones said that upcoming personnel changes within the street department provides an ideal time to look at scaling down the size of the department."

"We have a retirement coming up and another employee indicated that they may also be leaving to pursue an opportunity in another city," Jones said. "These two employees primarily take care of mowing the city grounds. I think it’s a good time to look at maybe downsizing the street department, and at least take hard look at bidding out our mowing. We would not only have some savings there in terms of two fewer salaries to pay for, but also equipment, fuel and through the removal of insurance costs."

Jones said the city would still take care of maintaining the rights of way along city streets and other areas that require a tractor and bush hog. "The areas we are looking at contracting out would be areas like the sewer plant and Field of Dreams that require mowing with a lawnmower," Jones said. The city plans to begin taking bids for the project in the next couple of weeks.

The third measure Jones proposed offers potential funding for the taking down or demolition of dilapidated commercial and residential structures in Rainsville. The city will soon begin the application process for a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) through the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA). The grant program provides demolition funding for municipalities to use and make available to city residents in order to remove dilapidated or dangerous structures on commercial or private property.

Jones said the city of Fyffe is a past recipient of a CDBG demolition grant. The grant is funded through an 80/20 split with the state providing 80 percent of funding and the municipality providing the other 20 percent. Fyffe used the grant for the demolition of 25 properties that ultimately saved property owners $188,000.

“This grant would allow property owners who are in need of demolition work to safely remove structures that are beyond repair and potentially dangerous,” Jones said. “Safely taking down a structure that needs to be demolished can be very expensive. If we were approved for this grant the work would be provided at no cost to the property owner and hopefully we could bring these structures up to city code.”