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Council weighs restoring annual paving, boosting drainage funds and adding street staff
Summary
Council and street-department staff discussed restoring a $200,000 annual paving allocation, raising stormwater funding from $35,000 to $100,000 and adding one or two full-time positions to the street crew; staff cautioned that funding without additional equipment or personnel could create delivery bottlenecks.
At a May 8 special meeting, Santa Fe council members reviewed the street department’s preliminary budget requests, including restoring the annual paving allocation to $200,000 and increasing stormwater/drainage funding to $100,000.
Street supervisor Billy described the requests as largely capital and maintenance driven and cautioned that adding more paving or drainage dollars without commensurate staff or equipment would create a backlog. He told council that “if you give me a bunch of money in roads or a bunch of money in drainage, all you’re gonna do if you’re not gonna give me no more employees or no more equipment, you’re just gonna jam me up.” (statement in meeting)
Rudy, the budget presenter, confirmed the $200,000 paving number and the storm-sewer increase from $35,000 to $100,000. The street packet shows capital leases for equipment and a mix of recurring maintenance lines; Rudy said lease payments and capital items are visible in the capital-improvement and lease-payment lines.
Council and staff discussed staffing options. Rudy added two new positions on the draft personnel list, and the council debated whether to fund both or only one. The packet lists a starting pay for the equipment operator role at $17.71 (grade 13). Council members noted seasonal or contract staffing is more expensive hourly and that temporary staff may be less reliable for specialized equipment work; staff said they prefer hiring full-time equipment operators for continuity and training.
The conversation also covered fleet maintenance accounting, how labor is charged among departments, and maintenance lines for a newer grade-all/excavator (a six-year warranty was noted and a small annual maintenance cost of roughly $384 for oil/filters was described). Staff said some object codes are legacy items retained for continuity and that they will clean up unused codes in future drafts.
No formal staffing hires were approved at the meeting; council left the two-request “wish list” on the draft so staff have a starting point for further review.
