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By Ena Sellers
Duplin Journal
MAGNOLIA — The Town of Magnolia discussed water and sewer rate increases for the upcoming fiscal year during the board’s regular monthly meeting held on March 12.
Town Manager Charles “Twig” Rollins told the Duplin Journal that the town’s water and sewer fund is struggling right now because rates have not been increased in 11 years. According to the town manager that was a decision made by the prior administration, and during that amount of time inflation went up 31%.
“It was costing more to produce water and process our wastewater, so we kind of got behind the eight ball and we are needing to raise rates,” said Rollins, explaining that by state law an enterprise fund has to be run like a business. “You have to charge what it costs you to operate that enterprise fund, just like you would a business, so we’re going to need to raise the rates this next budget year, July 1. We’re cranking final numbers and everything for that and to see how much that will be.”
The town manager will present a recommended budget in May to give the public plenty of time to review it. A public hearing will be scheduled after that to give the public a chance to comment before the budget gets adopted at the end of June.
Rollins shared that the plan is to present the recommended budget at the Tuesday, May 14, regular board meeting. “But the budget is not final until the board actually votes on it. And that’s after a public hearing,” said the town manager.
In other business:
The Town of Magnolia will be operating on a four-day, 10-hour schedule starting April 1.
Rollins told the Duplin Journal this will extend the hours that they are open to the public, giving them more time to come in and do business. The new hours will be Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m.- 6 p.m.
“One of the big things that all local governments are struggling with is keeping employees, and being a small town, we can’t always pay employees what other governments are [paying],” said Rollins. “So, we’re looking at innovative ways to give them extra benefits. And one of the ways that we can do that is to go to a four-day work week.”
Rollins told the Duplin Journal that they will always have a police officer and public works on call. “We have that right now after hours, weekends and holidays,” said Rollins, adding that the board also is giving employees a paid personal day off during the month that they were born.
“The four-day work week has no significant financial change in the town… It just allows the employees to have a long weekend every weekend. We’re just trying to get innovative. We did do a cold raise last year and we did some reclassifications, and the commissioners are very focused on taking care of the employees because they realize they’re the greatest asset, and we have very good employees.”
Rollins shared it’s hard to recruit employees in small rural governments when they are competing with municipalities with larger budgets. “We’re nowhere near what other departments are paying… It is very hard to hire people. Because they can just go to another municipality or another county and make more money. Our retirement system is based on our highest paid four years, if you work in local government. And then the other thing is you can move around and still be in the same retirement system. So somebody can work for one town and then go to the county and then go to the state and then come back to a town. They’re all in the same retirement system. And 95% of the time their sick time carries over too. So, you know, there are towns and counties that hire from other ones. And a lot of times, unfortunately, the small governments end up training people and getting people certifications and then the bigger ones kind of vacuum suck them up because they’re trained, they’ve got some experience, and they’ve got some certifications. It’s always been a struggle. But the last couple of years has been a way more of a struggle.”
The town manager emphasized that services in the Town of Magnolia will not be affected, and that the main reason for the change is for employee retention.
“We’re still going to have everybody on call, that we’ve had on call. The town hall will only be open four days a week and the police department will still be answering calls and have people on duty. The public works will still have people on duty,” said Rollins, adding that if a bill is due Friday, they will give customers until the next business day at 5 o’clock to pay their bill without incurring late fees. “There’s no degradation to services in the town.”
The next town board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 3.
