Indiana Newsdesk's Joe Hren sat down with Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett and talked about how the city budget is taking shape this year while preparations begin on next year. Plus the mayor updates us on a downtown sink hole repair and road construction projects.
Listen to their full conversation above. Here are some highlights:
Hren: How is the city budget coming along for this year?
Bennett: We're running about two percent under budget of what we had approved so we're doing ok, we're where we had hoped to be at this point. It's always a moving target, so from one day or one week or one month the next, it can change.
Hren: Does being at two percent under budget concern you at all, is there a point you need to start cutting so as to not be over for the current year?
Bennett: No, if we were over budget by two percent, absolutely. The summer time, late spring, summer and early fall is our peak time. Expenses are lower at the end of the year because of the variety of projects you have going on, the consultants you hire, the extra staff you bring on, so I'm feeling pretty good at where we're at of two percent.
Hren: I hear a downtown sink hole closed an entire block? How are repairs coming along?
Bennett: The sewer had an issue. So you had to cut it open and move the utilities out of the way to get down there and fix that sewer pipe. So they are actually ahead of schedule and we believe they are going to be done in about a week and a half sooner than what we originally thought.