Perryville’s proposed 2017-18 budget includes $2,000 for the cost of an ABC administrator to manage alcohol licenses and sales in the city, but the city has yet to see a business purchase an alcohol license.

This is the first time the position has been included in the budget, an expense of $2,000. Perryville legalized alcohol sales in a special election last year.

“That will be an expense,” said Council member Brian Caldwell, who was on the committee that helped draft the budget. “We talked about that, and we went back and forth as far as having that and, to be quite honest with you, were we even going to have the need for it?”

Upcoming events are expected to require special event licenses to sell some alcohol.

The Great American Brass Band Festival Croquet and Brass event will be hosted in Perryville and Caldwell said officials knew there would be a license issued for that event.

Council member Jerry Houck said a license will also likely be needed for the annual Perryville Commemoration in October.

The budget includes a $23,600 for the fire department, $11,000 of which is the department’s State Aid funding. That’s up from $18,024 last year, $8,250 of which was State Aid funding.

The police department budget would be $59,885, up from $59,670 last year.

The total proposed budget for the 2017-2018 year is $298,772, up $14,019 from the current year’s $284,753 budget.

“For the most part, there weren’t any big changes at all from what we had,” Caldwell said. “I think the biggest change was probably $300 to $500 here and there. As always, with what we had to work with, when we add $300, we have to take it from somewhere.”

Other changes include the building maintenance line, Caldwell said, which saw a $500 increase, from $2,500 in the current budget to $3,000 in the proposed budget.

Another increase, Council member Julie Clay pointed out, was the budget line for Grounds and Park, which would increase from $700 to $1,300.

“That’s where we spent last year,” Clay said.

Caldwell said the city’s spending trends are how the proposed budget is determined.

“With what we had to work with, you have to keep an eye on the last two years and kind of average those two years,” he said. “If you’re running in the red or the black on those two years, you have to compensate.”

One of the biggest things needed, Caldwell said, was for the apartment over city hall to be rented out. After the departure of the last tenants, the city did improvements and repairs on the apartment.

The proposed budget has $11,000 listed income from the rental properties owned by the city, which include the apartment and the second floor of the Perryville Community Center. For the current year, only $6,500 in rent was anticipated.

The proposed budget projects that the city will end the next fiscal year with a $2,711 account balance on June 30, 2018. That’s $634 more than the current budget, which expected an ending account balance of $2,077 on June 30, 2017.