Daily American Republic

New city manager Mark Massingham of Poplar Bluff warned council members Monday to expect budget amendments in the coming months as he continues to go through spending proposals left by former city manager Heath Kaplan. Among the first will be a change in the city’s plans to buy police cars. Kaplan had arranged a lease-purchase agreement for four vehicles at an interest rate of 7.5 percent, Massingham told the council in a city manager’s report. This would cost the city $15,000 in interest over four years, after which the city would buy the vehicles. The cost to purchase the vehicles outright will be about $130,000. About $32,000 was built into the current year’s capital improvement budget for police-car leases. The remaining cost to buy the vehicles will be split between the capital-improvement fund and the crime-reduction fund. Another proposed change would be to increase the mosquito-abatement program’s budget for chemicals from $5,000 to $25,000.