Four positions to be added to Town workforce: Smoak
Farragut Board of Mayor and Aldermen members expect to act on their FY 2025 budget when they meet 6 p.m., Thursday May 9, in Farragut Community Center.
They will have another workshop before they receive the final draft Friday, May 3, so they could mull over the numbers then have a final workshop before the May 9 meeting.
“We’ve been overviewing the budget for the FY ’25 going all the way back to February of this year,” Town administrator David Smoak said during a workshop Thursday, April 25. “This is a final run-through of our program changes, any changes that we’re making that regard personnel, merit increases, (cost of living) increases, things like that … will be proposed for next year.
Regarding personnel, he said there are four positions to be added to the budget: two Public Works technicians, information technology technician and a new administration position.
Along with some policy changes, “we are taking on additional responsibilities with McFee Park, with McFee property, with some property on Brooklawn right-of-way as well,” Smoak said. “We do need additional (Public Works) personnel to handle that.”
The total cost for the two PW positions is $147,000.
Additionally, “(information technology) has been an area we’ve really been focusing on for the last couple years,” he said. While the Town has and IT manager, “What we’re looking for is to add an IT technician.”
He estimates the cost of adding an IT technician would be $88,000.
“But the true hit to the budget is only about $20,000 because of the savings that we’ve had in order to reduce costs,” Smoak said.
With assistant to the Town administrator Trevor Hobbs leaving the Town, the Administration department is eliminating the assistant to the Town administrator position and adding a new position.
“So the total cost of this will be $54,000 in next year’s budget,” Smoak said. “This will help myself out with additional leadership, managerial and supervisory responsibilities for all departments.”
He noted the new administrative position would act as a second in command.
All personnel changes are estimated to cost about $289,780.
Next year, a 3 percent increase in cost-of-living and merit is being proposed for all employees.
Also, “we do know we have a health insurance cost increase of around 4 percent,” Smoak said.
With that, the Town is changing the ratio of payments from 92 (Town part of cost) and employees pay 8 percent to 90 (Town) and 10 percent (employees).
