Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Orange Beach approves $54 million FY2025 budget with employee raises and new capital projects
Summary
The Orange Beach City Council adopted its fiscal year 2025 budget Nov. 19, 2024, including a 2% cost-of-living increase for full-time employees, a $1 hourly raise for hourly staff, about $54 million in capital projects and funding for a veterans memorial and multimodal paths.
City Administrator Fort Danley presented and the Orange Beach City Council voted to adopt the city's fiscal year 2025 budget on Nov. 19, 2024, approving a package that includes a 2% cost-of-living increase for all full-time employees and a $1-per-hour increase for hourly workers.
Fort Danley, identified in the meeting transcript as the city administrator, summarized key figures during the presentation: "We're very excited to be able to have a raise for a 2% cost of living for all full time employees plus a dollar per hour raise for all hourly employees." He also said, "The overall capital for this budget comes out to be about 54,000,000, which includes the 23,000,000 left on the athletic complex." The administrator added the budget anticipates roughly $7,600,000 in reimbursements that will offset project costs.
The budget package funds a range of projects and one-time items cited by staff, including a roughly $7,000,000 veterans memorial, multimodal paths to connect The Wharf to Bearpoint and targeted repaving. The presentation also mentioned construction of new pickleball courts slated for 2025 and that lodging-tax revenue (a 2% lodging allocation) will go toward school funding as planned.
Council members moved and seconded adoption of the resolution authorizing the FY2025 special-revenue-to-general-fund transfers. After discussion and the staff presentation, the council voted in favor and the motion carried.
The council also approved a separate resolution authorizing a one-time payment to city employees during the same meeting. The budget and related personnel payments are effective for fiscal year 2025 as adopted; no further implementation timeline was provided in the transcript.
The council discussed grant-funded reimbursements and staff emphasized past success obtaining outside funds: "we have about $7,600,000 in reimbursements that'll come back to us," Fort Danley said when outlining credits to the capital program.
Next steps: the adopted budget takes effect for FY2025. Staff will continue project-level planning and grant administration as directed by council.
