With council work in full swing, an active mayor and a legislature in session, it seems to me there’s a lot going on.
Brown Outs
With the on-going work we do to plan our budget forecast each month, a subtle trend in our Fiscal Year 2013 budget is that we are accruing a bit of a fund balance of income in excess of the plan. Recently, I placed into the Budget & Finance Committee the issue of how to responsibly The practice of “browning out” each fire station throughout the county on a consistently rotating basis has been on the council’s mind. The practice has been used during these lean budget times to eliminate overtime that has been larger than ever until recently.
Root causes have to do with not adding new firefighters quickly enough as others retire, in essence leaving us systemically shorthanded. For reasons of financial survival, the council has supported the mayor in this policy for the last couple of years. The outcome has been thus far a savings without dire consequence. We do have a recruit class readying to graduate, and the budget calls for another to follow. However, even with those real and potential additions, the administration forecasts using the brown-out tool through next February. I believe the council will shortly be of a mind to use some of our fund balance to authorize a set amount of overtime to restore our fire service until the recruits and classes catch up to the number of firefighters needed to protect our community daily.
Paving ready
As of press time, all of the council offices were hopefully readying their paving budget lists for the new paving season. Again by way of background, we are about to bond $13 million for resurfacing. That amount is roughly half of the total paving need in Lexington, and we are for the first time going to use a consistent $1.5 million of our part of the gas tax revenue – as returned to us by the state – to fund the bond issue. This will give each councilmember a way to help both neighborhood and main arterial streets get the attention they deserve. I have been asking folks to let me know about street resurfacing needs via e-mail.
KU Shout Out, Not Lights Out
In anticipation of the Chevy Chase Intersection Redesign Project, I want to take a moment to thank Kentucky Utilities, and David Freibert and Ralph Cinnamon. David is the liaison to councilmembers, and who from before the first ice storm to now has been my “go to” to get and keep your lights on. Ralph, a gentleman I have yet to meet, heads up what I will loosely refer to as substation maintenance.
These gentlemen and more than one great Kentucky Utilities crew have worked to begin the transformation on South Ashland’s 1950s era substation, which has been surrounded by a fence since that time. I mentioned to David that work to upgrade Chevy Chase was underway and that the area around the transformer pen could be upgraded perhaps even to include a sidewalk or something other than gravel to walk on for the pedestrians who traverse that area. Please drive by and have a look at what a great change they are making. A new and much better looking enclosure is in place and a wonderful driveway, apron and sidewalk also grace the street side of the installation. The neighborhood has always been well served by Kentucky Utilities, and their responsive and positive nature is now well on display.