LAURINBURG — During Tuesday’s Laurinburg City Council meeting the board learned that the city, despite not having budget meetings, is hard at work trying to create one for the 2020-21 fiscal year.
City Manager Charles Nichols explained that in-house staff has been working to complete several different budgets, depending on what the next month might entail.
“There’s a lot of different things with the state — there’s talks of maybe doing an interim budget for a few months,” Nichols said. “We’re looking at now putting together a flat budget, not having any capital in it, just something to keep like when the state has a continual resolution to keep things as they are.”
Nichols said that if a few months into the budget things slow down, then capital options would be brought back to the council.
Typically, council meets several times during the spring to discuss what needs to be budgeted for during the year and what projects need to be funded before approving it.
“We don’t know in the next month things might settle down and we could come together for budget meetings,” Nichols said. “I just wanted you to know fortunately Harold Haywood, Cary Neil our finance director and myself have been together putting together the last five budgets so we’re looking at all options.”
Nichols said that despite the fact it’s not normal times with budget meetings the staff is still on top of putting together budget options.
Also during the meeting, Nichols told the council that the city has cut all expenses for the past month, aside from emergency purchases, due to an unknown future due to the pandemic.
Reach Katelin Gandee at [email protected]
