Laurinburg City Council members will resume its budget talks on Friday.

Council members will discuss the possibility of reducing benefits for city employees to cut costs.

Benefits to be discussed include 401K contributions, dental insurance and retirement health insurance.

The city currently contributes an amount equal to 5 percent of an employees salary to their 401K account. The state mandates the contribution for police officers but has no legal requirement protecting the contributions for the 123 non-police employees of the city.

The city pays out $244,621 in non-mandated 401K contributions.

Laurinburg also pays $24 a month for each of the city's 161 employees to have dental insurance, or more than $46,000 a year.

Several officials mentioned at the Monday-night meeting that employees were not happy about the possible reduction in benefits.

The city will also discuss the schedule of fees.

Councilman Tommy Parker wants to look at ways of using the fees to help businesses locate in or near Laurinburg.

Mayor Matthew Block asked to look at raising the commercial dumpster rates to make the Solid Waste Fund more self-sustaining.

The city will also look over amendments to the 2008-2009 fiscal budget that would shift money around to account for unexpected spending in some departments.

The council is paying particular attention to increasing a salary line item to account for paying former-City Manger Craig Honeycutt for his unused vacation time and changing what department paid another employee.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. in the municipal building and will be open to the public.

If the budget is not finished Friday, city council may meet again on Monday night. A budget hearing is planned for Tuesday night at 5:30, after which, the council will vote on the 2009-2010 budget.