Brownsboro City Council met Thursday, May 8, to go over the first draft of its proposed 2008- 2009 city budget. If the final version is anything like the version proposed at the City Council meeting, the budget will be increased by about $25,000. However, the water and sewer budget would be decreased by over $50,000.

One of the first big changes on the budget is the health insurance item. The figure jumped from $16,500 to $26,000. Brownsboro mayor Ronny Harris attributed the city's new assistant court clerk, hired in October of 2007.

Electricity and street repair could take a dip, street repair falling from $30,631 to $28,000 and electricity from $28,000 to $26,500.

One of the larger leaps on the expenditures budget is the miscellaneous item, which could go from $7,500 to $11,340.

For revenues, the fines and fees item took a massive leap on the proposed budget; it jumped to $145,000 from $124,950. This accounts for most of the change from the city budget's transition to $415,750 from $390,600.

Accounting for most of the $397,491 to $341,400 decrease in the water and sewer budget are the new equipment, repair and replacement and miscellaneous items. New equipment went from $35,000 to $10,850, repair and replacement from $21,846 and miscellaneous from $28,056 to $10,000.

Items like electricity and maintenance rose a bit, electricity rising from $44,500 to $46,000 and maintenance from $30,721 to $31,760.

The big factor in the water and sewer budget change is the FEMA reimbursement item, which provided $39,346 for the city in 2007.

Currently the budget target is 83.3 percent. Many items are close to this goal, though a few are either far under it or have gone over.

Of its $13,000 gas and oil budget, a balance of $3,693.60 remains, putting this item at 71.6 percent. Equipment repair currently stands at 62.7 percent of its $5,000 budget.

Miscellaneous has gone over the budget by $716.99. Health insurance has also gone over its $16,500 budget to $18,941.96.

Under revenues, fines and fees have far exceeded expectations; this revenue is at $171,635.00, 137 percent of the $124,950 budget drawn in 2007.

Though expenditures have gone about $5,000 over the budget, revenues are pouring in thanks to fines and fees.

"I'm very pleased that we're in such good shape," Harris said.

Water and sewer remains slightly under the budget mark, though water and sewer revenue does the same.

The council also passed two ordinances at the meeting. The first was an ordinance from Atmos Energy to increase franchise tax from four to five percent. The second ordinance effectively prohibited LED billboards from being constructed in Brownsboro without the council's permission.

The deadline to have an ordinance passed on the LED billboards is June 1, and there would not have been another Brownsboro City Council meeting before that time. There could be future meetings to elaborate on what signs would be allowed and what signs would not be allowed.