DAPHNE — After much debate, the City Council passed the fiscal year 2013 budget in a 4-3 vote.

This year marked the first time in a few years that the mayor presented a budget on time, even early, to the council. Mayor Bailey Yelding presented the budget to the council back in early September. It was also the first time in quite a while that a mayor presented a balanced budget to the council.

During a punlic hearing before the counil took the matter up for a vote, council member-elect Dane Haygood said that if the council wanted to hold off on the budget, the incoming council members were in agreement that they would be happy to tackle it. Council member Cathy Barnette later reminded the council-elect under the council’s meeting policy, they were simply citizens and could not discuss that topics without proper public notice.

Council members Derek Boulware and Ron Scott agreed the budget decision should be left to the incoming council members. A majority of the council will be new on Nov. 1, with four newly elected council members stepping in.

Boulware said he didn’t consider this a balanced budget because the budget would only be balanced if the council repealed a 2009 ordinance that set aside $500,000 a year for auto and road maintenance. The council did repeal that ordinance in a 5-2 vote earlier in the meeting, with the majority saying the ordinance just wasn’t needed anymore.

“This balanced budget is balanced by raiding the savings account designed for the ongoing maintenance of our roads,” said Boulware. “I think the issue at hand is this, ‘What we need to do for the incoming city council?’”

Yelding defended his budget saying, “I’d like to say we put a lot of effort into balancing this budget working with department heads. We have experienced members up here who have dealt with budgets before. Why would we pass that on to a young group who has not dealt with a budget.”

Yelding noted that the council had nearly a month to look over the numbers and approve a budget.

“So the only thing I can see is that we are trying to play politics over the budget,” said Yelding.

In past years, the council routinely received the proposed budget too late in the year to do anything with it, said Barnette.

“In the past we admonished the tardiness and the fact that it was not passed when it was supposed to be,” said Barnette. “So here it is now Oct. 1 and we are discussing not passing the budget because we want to pass it to someone else. There are no substantive problems within this budget.”

Councilman Gus Palumbo pointed out that city employee step raises were also at stake with this budget, after being frozen for a few years. City employees have been on a hiring and pay freeze for about three years.

“This budget includes restoring the step increases for city employees,” said Palumbo. “If we do not pass this budget it may not happen. I think to some extent that this council, the City Council, owes that to the employees who have been very patient with the city.”

Council members Conaway, Barnette, Lake and Palumbo voted to pass the budget while Reese, Scott and Boulware voted against the measure.