Imperial City Council moves forward in budgeting process

Budget season is in full swing for the Imperial City Council.
The group walked through the projected budgets for many services with Public Works Director Pat Davison during Monday evening’s meeting.
Among the items Davison pointed out was opening a new C&D cell at the transfer station for a cost of $250,000 under the Sanitation budget.
Davison also included a new concession stand at Schroeder Park for $350,000 under Park and Recreation. The council said they’d like to talk to Chase County Schools about contributing to a new concession stand.
Improvements to 16th Street, the city street to Titan Machinery and Broken Arrow Cellars. Davison said he wasn’t sure what to do about the street, but he would ask the company coming to Imperial to armor coat the street to see if they had any suggestions. Discussion also included improving the parking lot at the city offices.
While the Imperial Manor and Parkview Heights budget looked to be in the black for the fiscal year ending June 30, Doug Gaswick said he expects to see those numbers to be corrected and show a pretty big loss after the city’s audit.
Wages were also a big topic. The council passed an ordinance increasing the wages for Imperial Heights and Parkview Manor housekeeping and dietary staff, then late in the meeting discussed raises for other employees.
Jan Elliott said she had concerns about offering a 5% raise after employees received 10% raises last year. When other council members said employees have been receiving other job offers, discussion moved to whether or not 10% raises were necessary for administrative employees.
“There’s some numbers we need to take a hard look at,” Elliott said.
In other business, the council was advised by attorney Josh Wendell to not comment at this time on a tort claim filed by Bronwyn Eaton concerning an incident with the Imperial Police Department’s K9 Jago. The council will let the matter proceed until they are advised to take action.