Leland town council voted 4-1 to pass its municipal budget Thursday, with a 2-cent reduction to the tax rate.
The $50 million budget puts $9 million each into police and fire, $6.6 million into debt service, and $4.1 million into streets and grounds.
The budget has been contentious this year, with multiple extra public meetings for transparency. But speakers at the regular council meeting voiced disapproval, calling for each line item to be justified on the budget. Others questioned the council’s ability to efficiently steward public money after they spent $10,000 on legal fees looking into a council member’s laptop order earlier this year.
Newly elected councilman Frank Pendleton — the center of that laptop investigation — was the sole opposing vote to the budget. "I think that the finance team and the staff did a very nice job of putting this together. I think that the explanations that they provided were spot on. I think that they failed, in many cases, to provide a justification for the line items," he said.
Pendleton also voiced opposition to merit increases for town staff without there being a justification based on their actions.
