Monday evening, Aug. 19, the Duck Hill Board of Alderman held a special called meeting noted by Mayor Al White as a “Preliminary Work Session” for the Board to discuss the Town Budget first and foremost. Many other topics of interest were discussed throughout the meeting, however no action was taken and no votes were cast over the hour duration of the meeting. The major topics of discussion throughout this meeting are as follows.
As the first topic of discussion on the budget, the Board considered changing the recreation budget for the Town. The Board wanted to have the recreation budget better reflect the Town’s efforts to invest in the recreation opportunities within the town. Mayor Al White suggested changing the budget to allow $25,000 toward the recreation budget, stating that this money may need to be utilized to match grant funding if future grants are applied for. Alderwoman Shernell Brown Everett also noted that this funding could be used for the upkeep of any town owned recreational facilities such as basketball courts, parks or buildings, namely the community house or gym.
Much later in the meeting, on the same topic of recreational facilities, the Board expressed interest in investing in solar powered lights throughout the town for recreational trails or parks. At the mention of this, Alderwoman Likisha Small stated that she would be interested in looking into grant opportunities to secure funding for this project. In addition to this, Alderwoman Brown Everett brought up some concerns regarding the roofing of the gymnasium.
“The roof at the gym, we’re gonna have to get that fixed before we can get that air conditioning,” Alderwoman Brown Everett introduced the topic. “If we’re gonna get the air conditioners, they’re wanting to put them on top of the roof. And he said the roof has to be fixed — they have to be from the rafters down — a new roof to hold them,” she explained.
In addition to this, she explained that they would need an estimate for the total square footage of the gymnasium in order to make an educated decision on which size of HVAC units to purchase or install. Following this line of discussion, Alderman Michael Allen was called to answer questions on the matter of having someone come to measure the gym. Alderman Allen responded that the individual who was requested to perform the measurements would not be able to come to town until sometime next week at the earliest.
Following this, the Board moved on to discuss an issue with power outages being reported at the community house. Alderwoman Everett Brown explained that she had come to discover the power outage some time after initially discovering that the fridge at the community house had completely gone out. No exact dates or times were given, which prompted Mayor Al White to suggest that a discrepancy/ complaint log be kept at the Town Hall to keep track of dates and times of which complaints are made for data collection purposes.
The other major topic of the meeting was discussing the reassessment of the millage rate for the town. This topic was initially brought up at the beginning of the meeting, however it persisted throughout the meeting sporadically. It was mentioned at the beginning of the meeting that the millage rate had been raised by 3 mills in 2024 prior to the finalization of the budget for the fiscal year. After the mention of this, Town Clerk Lasonja Sizemore stated that she was researching with the town contracted Certified Public Accountant to find out how much revenue would be generated if the millage rate was raised one to two mills this year.
“Also, we need to keep in mind that we didn’t go through with that three percent salary increase last year for the employees,” Alderman Christopher Caldwell stated.
He explained that raising the millage rate would not only help the Town keep up with increasing general costs, but it would also help fund this cost-of-living raise for town employees. The topic of raising the millage rate was heavily debated at the table, however no decisions were made as of yet. Clerk Sizemore explained to the Board that she was still currently waiting on more information regarding the possible revenue generation model, stating that she was hoping to hear back from the CPA by the end of the week.
After all discussion concluded, the nearly hour long work session regarding the 2025/26 fiscal year budget was called to a close by Mayor White.
