WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 20, 2010
10:00 PM

Yesterday Theda and I completed the draft of the expenditure budgets for the city for 2011. We will work on the draft for the revenue budgets over the next few days. I hope to have the final copy ready by the end of next week. After that I plan to meet with the city council budget committee during the first week of November. I plan to present the final draft to the city council at the November meeting. They will have one month and then will vote on the budget at the December meeting. Next years budget is almost the same as this years budget. There are some minor adjustments and a raise for the city employees.

I have a meeting in Jonesboro in the morning. The director of the planning and development district is retiring at the end of the year. I am on the executive committee and we will choose the replacement. We have had one meeting about this opening and decided to hire professional search to help with the process. Tomorrow we will have to take a vote to hire the help and to spend the money for the professional help. The process will take four to six months of complete, but the board feels that we will select a better replacement using this process.

This afternoon I met with a family to choose cemetery plots for their parents. The father is near death and the mother is not in good health.

Pat is enjoying her vacation in Florida. I miss her and Oscar, but I am glad she is able to spend this time in Florida.

I am not going to the Mississippi State football game this weekend. I gave my tickets to my brother in law. He or his daughter and her husband plan to use the tickets. The game is important, but it is not an SEC conference game. I usually go to all conference games and most years I skip some of the non conference games.