The City Council approved a general fund budget for FY 2011 Monday of approximately $22 million, according to Council President Lonnie Mixon.

“I am pleased to announce that we will finish the fiscal year in the black and have accomplished the goals that were set last year,” stated Mixon, who also chairs the council’s finance committee, reading from a prepared statement at Monday’s council meeting. “Overall, the city of Fairhope is on a solid financial footing. Our goal is to stay on this conservative path and within two years we should reach our goals.”

The council voted unanimously to approve the budget, despite objections about the budget process lodged by Councilman Mike Ford during a contentious Financial Advisory Committee meeting prior to the council meeting, which he restated at the council meeting.

Ford said Mayor Tim Kant had been cut out of the process and was not appointed to a budget committee, which included four senior city staff persons, three volunteer citizens and Mixon.

“I’m going to vote for it because it’s the right thing to do,” Ford said at the council meeting, explaining his objections were focused on the budget process more than the budget’s content.

“But I think it’s a slap in the face of the mayor and the people of Fairhope,” said Ford, referring to his contention that the mayor was not included in the budget process. “It looks like we’re reducing the office of mayor to nothing or to a city manager.”

Kant also objected to the budget process at the FAC meeting, saying he knew of no other city where the mayor did not first submit a budget to the council, which then modified and ultimately approved it.

Stan Grubin, chair of the budget committee, as well as Mixon, and Chuck Zunk, FAC chair and member of the budget committee, said Kant, although not formally on the budget committee, was invited to all meetings, but that he attended very few of the meetings.

At the council meeting, Kant said he “did sit back” from the process because the council appointed an independent committee and out of respect for that committee’s work.

“But I was personally opposed to (that budget process),” he said.

Both Mixon and Kant said they had met privately to discuss the city’s finances during the course of the budget process

During his remarks, Mixon stated the city now has $2.2 million in its reserve account but that it should have a 90-day reserve of about $6 million.

“We have (the current reserve) because of the implementation of the sales tax,” Mixon stated. “We will continue to put 50 percent of the sales tax in the reserve fund each year. This will get us to the $6 million goal in the year 2012. Had we not passed the sales tax, our reserve account would be minimal.”

The new budget did not include a pay raise for city employees but it did include a one-time “salary increase” for full-time employees, which functions like a bonus at the end of the year. Mixon said the cost of that payment was approximately $59,000.

Kant said it has been two years since city employees have received a cost-of-living increase and suggested that should have happened in the current budget.

The $22.4 million in general fund expenditures approved by the council Monday for FY 2011 was an increase from $21.5 million in FY 2010.

The budget approved Monday also included individual budgets for the city’s public utilities, which were not totaled together for an overall city budget amount.

Editor’s note: Additional coverage Oct. 1.