Kirksville presents state of the city

With the new year well underway, the Kirksville City Council presented its annual State of the City Address Jan. 31.

Each city department discussed its biggest accomplishments from 2015 and laid out a plan for 2016 during the meeting. City Manager Mari Macomber presented on behalf of the Human Resource department. Macomber says the 2015 department accomplishments included the termination of two 401a deferred compensation plans, which are employer retirement savings plans usually set up in the school system for teachers. Human Resources also assisted in the negotiation of a new labor agreement with Laborers Local 773 and created new online training for clerical and supervisory staff. Macomber says for the next year, the department is looking to identify new health care options, meet Affordable Care Act requirements, manage supervisor and department head training and development, and transfer duties of risk management to administration.

Assistant City Manager Ashley Young spoke on behalf of Community Services. Young presented the accomplishments for the Economic Development Plan during 2015, which included the Kraft-Heinz Expansion Project, the approval of an agreement to construct a Hampton Hotel and a $77,000 Cenveo Lighting project to make Cenveo more efficient. Young says during 2015 the department planned and executed the third Project Homeless Connect, reinvigorated the Affordable Housing Board with Fair House Training and worked with organizers of the first Big BAM in Rotary Park. Young says during the upcoming year Community Services will continue to work with Kirksville Regional Economic Development Inc. on the Kraft-Heinz project and will proceed with the Downtown Revitalization Program Pilot Project.

Finance Director Lacy King presented the Finance Department’s 2015 accomplishments. King says the department successfully upgraded its accounting software, making it more informative and user friendly, and created more credit card capabilities within Parks and Recreation. The Municipal Court accepted more credit card payments for fees incurred and secured funding for a new waste water treatment plant. As for the upcoming year, the department looks to implement online utility services and complete authorization of the waste water treatment plant project.

The Municipal Court Department’s achievements, presented by Municipal Court clerk Linda Sandstrom, included new state court software called Judicial Information Systems and making cases reviewable online. The department modified traffic fine distribution and court costs, and set up an online system of payments allowed for disposed cases. For 2016, Sandstrom says the department’s goals include expanding of guidelines through JIS, and exploring costs and ways of implementing electronic transfer of citations from the Kirksville Police Department to the courts.

For more information on the state of the city continue reading on Issuu.