By WILLIAM SNOWDEN
Editor
The St. Marks City Commission held a special budget meeting this week to pass resolutions to correct some problems with budget advertisements than ran in September.
A quorum of city commissioners was present on Monday, Nov. 27, to pass the measures: Mayor Steve Remke, and city commissioners Sharon Rudd and Paula Bell. (Bell was sick, so instead of sitting at the dais, she sat in the back of the meeting room.)
Apparently, the original ads did not use the words “Notice of Tax Increase” and ran afoul of the state Department of Revenue.
The city also re-ran its budget summary, and it’s not exactly clear why the budget numbers in the September ads are different from the numbers in the ads that ran in The Sun last week.
For example, the September ad states: “The proposed operating budget expenditures for the City of St. Marks are 18% more than last year’s total operating expenditures.” The newest ad says the expenditures are 8% more.
The city commission found numbers in it’s old resolutions that had commas instead of decimals, and that may have led to the differences.
“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” Mayor Remke said.
