Roanoke Rapids City Council Tuesday night scrapped plans for a scheduled public hearing on the upcoming fiscal year budget.

Instead, council will meet Monday at 5:15 p.m. in the Lloyd Andrews City Meeting Hall to go over amendments which were the result of discussions during a May 19 meeting.

The budget public hearing is now tentatively scheduled for the panel’s June 16 meeting, which will be held at 5:15 p.m. at Lloyd Andrews.

Councilman Wayne Smith made the motion to take the public hearing off the agenda and Ernest Bobbitt cast the second.

Smith said this morning his concern on having the matter tabled was to give council more time to discuss the amendments presented in the $15,580,502 financial plan.

The proposed budget continues to call for no tax increase and will pull $60,000 from fund balance, city Finance Director Leigh Etheridge said today.

She said the amendments include those which reflect the May 19 decision to keep the Aquatic Center open for extended hours.

That will increase the total Aquatic Center budget from a requested total of $143,570 to $189,069. 

Included in that number are the costs associated with part-time salaries, maintenance and utilities costs as well as needed supplies.

In the revenue line item $190,000 has been budgeted for projected federal and state COVID-19 assistance funds.

The amendment also includes an increased line item for firefighter salaries and the associated line item for FICA. This line is the original amount of current fire department full time salaries. This is due to council’s earlier recommendations that there be no furloughs or layoffs.

The demolition line item in the planning and development department has been increased from $20,000 to $45,000.