The city of

Senoia is starting off the new year with a significantly

larger budget than last year's.

City

Council Tuesday night unanimously approved a $1.1 million

operating budget for fiscal year 2000, which is nearly 10

percent larger than 1999's.

Mayor Joan

Trammell explained the raise in this year's totals is due

to several reasons.

First, the

city is building a sewer system, which should increase

revenues and expenditures.

The biggest

part of the budget is the city's police budget, which

came in at $393,000. Salaries are up in the department,

but Trammell said the city is finally fully staffed with

10 police officers.

Trammell

said she also figured $9,000 into the police department's

budget to use as incentives to try and keep the police

officers from moving rapidly to other departments around

the region.

"We've

raised the salary to where I think we're competitive with

other departments and the incentives should help keep the

officers here," she said.

The

incentive program will add $1 an hour to an officer's

salary after he or she stays with the department after a

year.

In figuring

this year's budget, Trammell said she figured

conservatively when it came to revenues because she would

rather be surprised at the end of the year than

scrambling to find funds.

While the

city continues to grow, Trammell said the revenues from

items such as water tap-on fees will increase. But, she

also would like to find other revenue sources from items

such as impact fees.

The mayor

hopes to have a committee formed this year to study

impact fees and recommend a fee structure to the council.