Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the City Budget And Administration topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Votes at a glance: Meridian council approves hires, ordinance, budget transfers and council pay increase
Summary
At its March session, the Meridian City Council approved a routine consent agenda and a series of personnel hires, budget amendments, a rental-housing ordinance and a $27,000 annual salary for council members; a proposal to raise the mayor's pay to $100,000 failed for lack of a motion.
The Meridian City Council voted on multiple routine and substantive items at its March meeting, approving personnel hires, budget amendments, a rental housing registration ordinance and a change to council pay that will take effect July 2025.
Items approved by the council included acceptance of an agreement for cell phone service features, hiring of two account clerk seniors and six animal control officers for the Meridian Police Department, authorization of paramedic pay incentives, adoption of the city's 2025 rental housing ordinance and several budget transfers and capital outlay adjustments. The council also approved an order raising each city council member's annual salary to $27,000 beginning July 2025. A separate proposal to add an agenda item to increase the mayor's salary to $100,000 failed for lack of a motion.
The meeting record shows routine motions for the consent agenda passed with the chair calling for "Aye" and declaring the ayes have it; specific roll-call tallies were not recorded in the public transcript. Several budget amendments moved funds from legislative transfers and special projects into departmental accounts for personnel, vehicle purchases and projects; amounts discussed in the meeting included transfers of $153,600 for personnel, $35,000 for public works supplies and $270,000 for parks and recreation transfers, among others.
In other action, council authorized staff to submit a grant application to the Mississippi Board of Animal Health's car-tag grant program for animal-control spay/neuter funding; the presenter said awards range from $1,500 to $3,500 and funds would support spay/neuter initiatives.
A motion to amend the agenda to add an order to increase the mayor's salary to $100,000 beginning July 2025 was proposed by the mayor but not seconded; the mayor stated the proposal was intended to follow a salary-study recommendation, and the motion "died on the floor."
