The Auxvasse Board of Aldermen held its final budget work session for the 2015 budget Tuesday night.
A nearly-finalized version of the budget was reached, and with one more revision, the aldermen will vote on a final budget during the next board meeting on Nov. 10.
The topic of discussion during Tuesday night's meeting was the fire department. Fire Chief Nick Kaufman was present to discuss the line items for his department's budget.
According to Kaufman, the fire department had an expensive year in 2014, with the majority of its money being spent on utility costs for the fire station. He said that in the past, the department has spent nearly $6,000 on the utility costs of the current location.
The proposed changes come in a reduction of $2,500 to the fire equipment line item, and an increase to the building repair line item. This increased cost will come from insulating the building.
Right now, Kaufman said, the department is losing money on heating and electricity costs.
"If we can fix what is wrong this year, we can loosen up money (in the budget) for next year," he said.
Kaufman proposed that spending the money now to fix the insulation problem will help improve the high costs of utilities for the building in the future, ultimately saving the department money.
"The fire department is very interested in doing things as cheaply as we can," he noted.
City Superintendent Mike Bertschinger agreed with Kaufman as far as the cost to improve the insulation went.
"It may be a tight budget this year, but they'regoing to be in a better place the next year," Bertschinger said.
After the discussion on the fire department's portion of the budget, Bertschinger announced that he would have to create a final draft of the budget, and the aldermen will be able to vote on the proposed budget at next week's regular city council meeting. The meeting, usually held the second Tuesday of the month, was moved to 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov.10.