UPDATE: Jackson mayor asks to cut budget by $110M

City Council members respond to Jackson Mayor Tony Yarber's recommendation for a budget cut totaling almost $110 million compared to the current fiscal year's tally.

Yarber said the cut would not affect taxes. The lower budget recommendation, in part, is a result of reduced expenditures on bond projects, most notably water meter upgrades that will lower the city water and sewer department's budget by nearly $83 million from the previous year.

A city budget must be approved by the City Council by Sept. 15, the statutorily mandated deadline to have a finalized budget before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1.

"The mayor and I have been speaking about this, and I have felt like all along that the current budget was artificially inflated," said Ward 1 Councilman Quentin Whitwell. "I voted against the budget that we are under this year because of that."

Whitwell, one of the most fiscally conservative council members and its only Republican, said past budgets had come in around the $350 million mark but the current one ballooned past $500 million.

Those extra funds were in part because of infrastructure upgrades, including water meters and street projects.

The council will meet several times next week to go over members' ideas for the upcoming budget before the city holds a public hearing — also required by law — on Sept. 4 to present its suggested budget.

"We're going through the numbers and making sure that what we say we want to do we're actually doing," said council president De'Keither Stamps of Ward 4.

Stamps said he believed the council and mayor's office are in agreement on several areas involving the budgeting process while others will take further discussion.

"But we have a good working relationship with the administration," he added.

Even with an aggressive cut to the budget, Yarber pledged no police officer or firefighter would lose a job and vowed to graduate three recruiting classes within the next fiscal year.

Infrastructure upgrades and the first meeting of the 1 percent sales tax commission this month also were mentioned as top priorities for the mayor's office, even with less money in the budget.

The city has been facing a potential $14 million deficit in the current fiscal year, a shortfall partially caused by additional costs of delayed road repair projects and dealing with potential repayment of federal Housing and Urban Development funds that were improperly spent.

Contact Dustin Barnes at dbarnes2@gannett.com or (601) 360-4644. Follow @DustinCL on Twitter.