Albany City Council held a lengthier than usual regular meeting last Tuesday, March 6 with all members on hand, as several bids were opened on surplus vehicles and the council reviewed its 2016-17 year fiscal year audit report.

The council first accepted the low bid of $76,823.87 from Hayes Pipe and Supply to replace some 35 older fire hydrants in Albany

The new hydrants are to be installed by city employees.

Approximately $66,000 of the total amount of the hydrants came in the form of a state grant.

The council then heard an update on the city’s new water billing system from water department employee Pam Allred.

Most recent bills, during the changeover, saw some bills higher than usual and some lower due to the timing of the water meter reading during the changeover to the new system.

Allred said bills should be back in uniform order by next month’s billing cycle, but there are still kinks to be worked out before billing will be available to be paid by debit card or online.

She noted the company doing the changeover was still phasing in new equipment and customers are asked to be patient during the process of updating the new billing system, which will hopefully make it easier and more accurate in reading meters, being able to pay bills electronically and other changes.

Several bids were then opened by Mayor Nicky Smith on some five Crown Vic police cars that had been advertised forsale via sealed bid, each vehicle having a minimum of $500 per bid.

A total of 23 bids were received, with one vehicle having only two bidders while two others received three bids each and two of the vehicles received seven bids.

The low successful bidder to highest was $752.95 upward to $1,050 on two of the cruisers.

After all bids were opened, a motion was made and passed to accept the high bid on each vehicle, which passed unanimously. The total for all five brought the city $4,583.95 to be put back into the police department and help pay for new cruisers recently purchased by the city, again with most of that money coming in the form of a matching grant.

The council spent at least half of the just over one-hour session reviewing the most recent year’s audit with Auditor Sammy Lee.

Overall, the city itself is still in sound financial condition insofar as assets and most revenues, and Lee also said the water and sewer departments, which have been in debt in recent years, seemed to be making a rebound in incoming water revenue.

The audit was reviewed department by department, including general government, but the majority of discussion along with several questions dealt with the ongoing problem with the state’s pension, or state retirement system, which is deeply in debt.

Lee noted that the state retirement debt is going to affect almost every local government that has employees paying into, or that have paid into, the retirement system, as those entities would eventually have to foot the bill to help solve the crisis.

The auditor estimated the city of Albany’s portion of the pension plan debt, unless things change in the legislature, would be around $115,000 more for the next fiscal year.

For the second year in a row, Lee warned the council to “be prepared” for what may be coming in regards to the state pension system’s financial woes, noting this has been an ongoing thing that began decades ago and was simply not addressed by past administrations and/or the general assembly.

Mayor Smith did say the legislators, as of last week, were looking at some type of “phasing in” costs over the years to help eliminate the burden to cities, counties, school districts, etc. and hopes the General Assembly, which is currently in session, can get something worked out to ease the burden on local governments.

“It (retirement system problem) sounds bad, but I don’t believe it is as bad at it appears,” the mayor said.

Lee noted that among the options the state would have to help relieve the $30 billion debt is an idea to possibly raise the state sales tax in Kentucky to about eight percent, but that is just one option being looked at.

The next regular meeting of Albany City Council is scheduled for Tuesday, April 3 at 5 p.m. at city hall and is open to the general public.