After waiting until twenty days into the 2010 fiscal year, the Brundidge City Council passed the 2010 budget at its meeting Tuesday.

The total budgeted amount is $9.4 million, down from the $10.1 million of a year ago.

The budget also allows for roughly $215,000 in excess revenue, but City Manager Brit Thomas said the actual amount of leeway in the budget will be closer to $98,000 after a letter of credit is applied.

“The whole thing is pretty tight,” Thomas said.

General fund expenditures and revenues are both up for the 2010 budget, with roughly $33,000 in excess general fund revenues.

The city was able to save money in this year’s budget by cutting the expenses associated with code enforcement. Code enforcement will now be handled by employees at city hall, rather than employing an additional person.

Approximately $53,000 was cut from the budget in the code enforcement move.

A three-year analysis of the new budget and the last two budgets showed that the city has gone a long way toward paying off debt services, including nearly $100,000 paid toward debts last year.

“This is a very good thing,” Thomas said. “To be able to pay off that much in a year is great.”

The news was not all good for the city, however.

Brundidge’s application for a CDBG grant was denied, the first time such a grant had been denied to the city since 1995.

“We don’t have any official communication yet, but we did not get the CDBG grant,” Thomas said.

“We missed the cutoff by just four points.”

Thomas also provided the council with a status update on the ongoing library project.

“Things are coming along nicely,” Thomas said.

“We expect we’re 50 percent of the way there. That should translate into us coming in pretty good from a financial standpoint.”

Efforts on the library will be focusing mainly on exterior appearance in the next few days.

“We are putting on trim that matches the trim on the existing building,” Thomas said.

“We’re also going to be trying to replicate the brick from the existing building as closely as we can. Right now, the biggest difference between the two should be shingles, which we’re also looking at right now.”