The City of Ozark makes plans with a new fiscal year budget

OZARK, Ala. (WTVY) - After finishing up the budget, the city of Ozark found their expenses and revenue looked better than they originally thought. With their revenue coming in 13.3% higher and expenses 1% percent lower, the city is looking to make needed improvements throughout Ozark as they enter into the next fiscal year.

“We’re looking at some things that is not only helping us this year but it’s going to help us into the future,” said Ozark Mayor Mark Blankenship.

Many projects the city that had been wanting to start--will now become a reality.

“We’re looking to doing a total lighting and electrical rehab on our civic center. We’re upgrading it. A lot of the equipment in there has been there since 1975. Our power bill on the civic center runs about $79,000 a year,” said Blankenship.

The city is looking to not only lower the cost of that bill, but to give more options for events at the Civic Center.

“But it’s also doing some things like with stage lighting and sound and those kinds of things that’ll help bring more events into the civic center,” said Blankenship.

The city is also planning to demolish abandoned or neglected lots.

“I think in last year’s budget we had about $20,000 in demolish fund, we call it, and we’ve increased that to about $100,000,” said Blankenship.

The city believes these next steps could pave the way for even more community members taking pride in where they live.

“I think it just goes back into pride in your community and a lot of times it doesn’t take much money and effort to be clean and have our facilities in great shape and I think we’ve fell behind on that in past years and we’re just really focusing on it,” said Blankenship.

The mayor says that he’s received many compliments from community members regarding the city’s handling of cleanup efforts since starting these projects. The city of Ozark is also looking to make improvements to some parks and their downtown area.

Copyright 2021 WTVY. All rights reserved.

Subscribe to our News 4 newsletter and receive the latest local news and weather straight to your email every morning. Get instant notifications on top stories from News 4 by downloading our mobile apps.