With the budget deadline less than 24 hours away, the Selma City Council held a budget hearing Monday afternoon to speak with department heads about lingering questions revolving around the upcoming year’s financial playbook.

Selma City Councilman Corey Bowie noted that the meeting was an effort to “bring things to a close” before the Oct. 1 deadline.

City of Selma Planning and Development Department Director Henry Thompson was the first to come before the council Monday afternoon.

Thompson started by explaining how the proposed budget reflects three new part-time workers in his department, all of which will be classified as Selma Welcome Center attendants.

The employees will work 12 hours per week, which Thompson said will save the city money in the long run.

Thompson stated that it is his intention to expand the city’s involvement in tourism by sponsoring tours through the Selma Welcome Center focused on the city’s civil rights history, as well as its iconic cemeteries.

“We want to get the city completely involved in [tourism],” Thompson said.

Thompson noted that he has an eye toward tripling the amount of revenue generated by the center each year, which previously took in between $8,000 and $10,000 a year.

Thompson also noted that his department’s budget is looking for an increase of $50,000 for special projects, specifically completing the park at the base of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which is slated to be named after former Selma Mayor James Perkins.

Further, Thompson’s department is banking on roughly $128,000 to complete work at the amphitheater – the roof on the two-story building connected to the amphitheater was never completed and the damage being done is putting the rest of the facility at risk.

While Thompson noted that the project would cost significantly more than the money budgeted – somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000 – he asserted that there were multiple avenues for the city to finding matching grant funds to complete the work.

“If we don’t do anything to it, it’s going to basically compromise everything we’ve done,” Thompson said.

As far as the city’s Personnel Department is concerned, the council asked Selma Mayor Darrio Melton whether or not the city was saving money on insurance.

Melton stated that, while the cost of health insurance has increased, the decrease in employees represented a net decrease in the cost of insurance for the city.

The council also heard from City of Selma Cemtery Department Director John Coon, who floated the idea of increasing the cost of burial plots and other services.

Currently, plots in New and Old Live Oak cemeteries are selling for aound $300 – Coon recommended that they be raised to $575 and $525 in Lorenzo Harrison Memorial Gardens.

Additionally, Coon proposed that the opening and closing fee, which is currently at $300, be increased to $500 during the week and an additional $300 for the weekend.

It was also recommended that the cost of building and gas inspections, currently at $10, be increased to $25 per visit, which would put the city more in line with surrounding municipalities.