By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – Slidell city workers will begin seeing more money in their paychecks beginning in 2016 after the Slidell City Council accepted a recommendation at Tuesday night’s meeting to give employees a 2.5 percent raise.
Mayor Freddy Drennan recommended the raises after seeing seven consecutive months of sales tax revenue growth in the city.
He had hinted at raises for city workers for over a year, but said he needed to see consistent growth in the sales tax fund before he would support such a move.
Not only did the city finish the 2015 fiscal year with a 2.66 percent increase in sales tax revenue over 2014, but the 2016 fiscal year that began in July is off to a 4.80 increase in sales tax dollars compared to 2015.
The recommendation at the Tuesday night City Council meeting was accepted and scheduled for a public hearing on January 12. Drennan said as long as the council votes to support the plan in January, which is expected, he asked for the raises to be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2016.
Raises for city workers are part of a package introduced on Tuesday night to the City Council that includes $4.6 million in a supplemental budget that is coming from the $2.3 million in the BP Oil settlement, plus $2.3 million in sales tax money that was reaped during a strong 2015 year for the city.
Drennan put forth recommendations for both funds that the City Council will vote on after the January 12 public hearing at their regular meeting.
The BP money will mainly be used to build a new water well behind the former Factory Outlets mall area of Slidell, near the intersection of Old Spanish Trail and Interstate 10.
Drennan said the growth in the Fremaux area, that is expected to spread towards Old Spanish Trail, mandates the need for the well to ensure proper water pressure and supply in the area. The well is estimated to cost $1.7 million.
The major commercial growth in that region of Slidell has been tied to the opening of the Fremaux Town Center, with more growth expected to come on the 400 acres the Town Center sits on, which owner Robert Levis is continuing to develop with the guidance of developer Stirling Properties.
Drennan said the next big projects that could materialize there are two major hotels, a development with 300 garden-style homes, and the Phase II retail space that Stirling Properties is now working on.
“There is a lot coming to the city in that area and we need the well to ensure the water supply, and the pressure of the water, is adequate for everything we see coming there,” he said.
“We knew the opening of the retail space at the Town Center would spark more commercial growth there and that’s just what we are seeing now,” he added.
The mayor recommended $546,905 of the BP money to fund increased costs for the BIG Grant the city received over two years ago that will pay for a marina at Heritage Park, and include complete repairs to the deteriorating bulkhead along the edge of the park and boat launch areas.
The city initially expected to pay over $300,000 for its matching funds to the BIG Grant, but the mayor said some of the in-kind work the city expected to do was disallowed, meaning the city had to come up with nearly double the amount of cash they expected to need.
“We thought we could use city workers to do things like build a foot bridge there and a few other projects, but the work was not allowed and we were told we couldn’t count that as in-kind work,” Drennan explained. “That’s why we had to come up with so much more cash.”
The $2.3 million of sales tax money is being used for a variety of items, the largest being the repair of the Magnolia Street bridge that is estimated to cost $650,000. Drennan said the bridge is not at a dangerous state, but “the repairs were going to be needed somewhere soon so we wanted to take care of them while we had this money.”
Also with the sales tax supplement, the city is spending over $600,000 for federal matches to projects that will bring two separate improvements to Slidell in the next two years.
Improvements to the intersection of Fremaux Avenue and Front Street will include crosswalks funded by the state, allowing easier walkability from Heritage Park events into Olde Towne. However, Slidell has to put up a matching total of $263,000 for the project expected to be finished sometime in 2017.
The city is also contributing $395,000 for a Safe House that will be built on the City Barn property, off Bayou Lane. Drennan said the city was contacted by the state and offered an opportunity to partner in the construction of the Safe House—a building that will be a Public Operations command center during storms. The state will be contributing over $1.2 million to add a vital center to Slidell for any natural disasters.
The police department will get $270,000 to improve the situation with deteriorating police cars, expecting to replace some and repair others, while the PD will also get $150,000 for repairs to the offices at the station.
“After Katrina in 2005 we were fortunate enough to get money from FEMA to replace many of our police cars that were flooded,” Drennan said. “But that was 10 years ago and we haven’t been replacing them since that time. This money will get us back on track to begin changing them out on a rotating basis in the future.”