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By ZACHARY SEIFTER/ Staff Writer

The Thorsby Town Council spent time on Sept. 7 discussing the town’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

The first thing that was discussed was the overall revenue that was generated for the town this year. While the overall numbers are not yet official, it appears that Thorsby will see a significant increase in revenue from last year’s budget to this upcoming budget.

Expectations are that the town will have over $300,000 more in revenue for this upcoming budget. Over $244,000 of that comes from funds received from the American Rescue Plan Act, but even without it there appears to be an increase of over $60,000 in revenue.

“We had lockdown, we had a lot of people staying home, we had a lot of people going to Dollar General … so sales tax was way up and normally it’s not that high,” Thorsby Mayor Robert Hight said.

There is still revenue to be generated until the end of this month, but currently, the town has just under $1,616,082 in revenue for the upcoming budget. The plan is for $1,563,750 of that to be spent by the various departments in the town, with the other $52,332 being saved.

“We’ll watch what we spend,” Hight said.

With the extra money, multiple departments will be seeing increases in their budgets.

The police department is expected to get about $80,000 added to its budget. The fire department is projected to get an extra $66,000. The street, garbage and sewer departments are also projected to receive more money in this upcoming budget.

Also discussed at the council meeting was the hiring of two part-time employees as well as a reserve officer for the police department. Hight also discussed changes to the employee handbook that would allow for a 3% cost of living raise each year if it can fit in the budget.