Scottsboro Police Chief Ron Latimer came to the Scottsboro City Council on Monday in the hopes of getting a budget amendment for the police departmentâs training funds.
The budget amendment request is for $16,000 due to the Alabama Police Officer Standards and Training (APOST) raising the cost of academy admission in June 2020. The cost was raised from $2,300 to $4,300. When an officer completed their training from the academy, APOST would normally reimburse the police department $1,300 however that reimbursement has also been suspended.
âSince October 2020, weâve sent six newly hired officers to the academy at a cost of $22,800,â said Latimer. âOur total budget is $17,000 for travel and training and thatâs to train 44 sworn, certified officers. That 17 usually gets us through but since this academy price increase plus the suspension of the reimbursements, itâs totally wiped out our total travel and training for this year already. Thatâs why
The Scottsboro City Council unanimously passed a budget amendment that would allow the city to receive a second audit through MDA Professional Group, P.C., an accounting group with five locations throughout Alabama.
The budget amendment was not a set amount but said to not exceed $8,000, which was the maximum price given at the work session last week.
The second city audit was an item council member Nita Tolliver had been pursuing for months but always seemed to get pushed back due to âcurveballs.â
âEvery time I tried to move forward it seemed like there was always something blocking it, something coming back at me. Iâm glad that we have moved forward, and I feel like it proves that things can be moved, things can improve here in our city,â said Tolliver. âI am a servant for our city, and I want to move things forward. If thatâs one way that I can serve our city by making sure that I am following through on things that the citizens have asked, I
Scottsboro City Council member Nita Tolliver has decided to move forward with MDA Professional Group based out of Albertville to conduct the second city audit.
The Scottsboro City Council approved two items during Mondayâs meeting that would fund two fishing tournaments, one being a contract for the AL B.A.S.S. Nation High School Fishing Tournament and the other being a tourism grant for the Scottsboro Jackson County Rescue Squadâs (SJCRS) 10
th annual 10k Bass Tournament.
The contract asked for $4500 and six hotel rooms for one night, the same requests made in their previous two years. The tourism grant was for $5000.
The 10k Bass Tournament is scheduled to be held May 15 at Goose Pond Colony.
The Scottsboro City Council unanimously voted to move their weekly meeting times from 6 p.m. to 5 p.m. effective April 5, their first meeting of that month.
Council member Ralph Dawe said that most department heads typically clock out at about 4:30 p.m., so not having to wait around until 6 p.m. to attend meetings would make their lives much easier and that âone hour ainât gonna hurt nobody.â
The change in time could also allow some citizens who couldnât attend meetings before to be able to attend meetings now.
 âWhatâs good for somebody is not for others⦠It canât hurt to try, it might cause more attendance, I would think,â said Dawe. âSupper time is around 6 p.m., I just think that it might work out better for everybody involved and the department heads and employees that want to have a say in whatever the topic is, theyâre more likely to attend and be part of the decision-making or actually give us some insight on how th