Economic Development Commission hears report on balanced FY 2015 budget

ALBANY — New Albany-Dougherty Economic Development Commission President Justin Strickland presented a proposed Fiscal Year 2015 budget to the EDC board at its monthly meeting Thursday morning, a budget proposal that offered only minor changes from the current year’s budget.

“What you see (is a budget in which) total expenses match total income for a balanced budget,” Strickland said after taking the board through the $750,000 spending plan, line item by line item.

The budget proposal includes expenditures of $125,000 in reserve funding, which would be used to fund separate ongoing business intelligence and marketing/branding projects. Asked by board member and Dougherty County Administrator Richard Crowdis what the EDC’s fund balance total, minus the use of the $125,000, would be, Strickland said it would stand at around $100,000 at the end of FY 2015.

Strickland said the proposed budget accounts for an increase (to $2,700 monthly) in rent payment for the EDC’s offices at the Riverfront Resource Center and funding for a new staff member.

“We wanted to present the budget today to give everyone a month to think about it and determine if you have any questions,” Board Chairman Jay Smith said. “If there are questions, Justin or I will be happy to answer them for you.”

Also at Thursday’s meeting, EDC staff member Barbara Rivera Holmes said in a Renewal Task Force report that The Albany Herald’s Squawkbox remains the No. 1 negative in the community on surveys collected by the marketing firm working on a city/county branding project with the Economic Development Commission.

“We’ll work with representatives of The Herald to perhaps get names attached to the squawks as they have on comments on their website, but omitting The Squawkbox is the ultimate goal,” Holmes said.

Herald Editor Jim Hendricks said the newspaper has no plans to alter the popular feature.

“The Squawkbox gives the little guy — or woman — an opportunity to express themselves,” Hendricks said. “There are no plans to discontinue the Squawkbox, and there are no plans to alter its format.”

At the close of the meeting, board member Milan Patel told the board that he’d talked with representatives of a number of retailers who expressed interest in Albany during a recent Las Vegas trade show.

“These retailers know about Albany,” Patel said. “There is a lot of interest in our city.”