Sand Mountain Reporter

Boaz Mayor Tim Walker is known for his optimism, but even he admitted the national economic woes of 2009 made the year tough for tax-dependent entities like city governments.

“2009 will go down for a lot of folks as a year that we just kind of spun our wheels as we looked for ways to make our economy turn around locally,” the third-term mayor said. “I think we did pretty good. Sales tax revenues in Boaz were down 7.8 percent, I think, which is not as bad as a lot of cities. However, that’s real money that has to be cut from your budget.

“2009 was a belt-tightening year. I don’t think 2010’s going to be a robust change, but hopefully we’re going to start a little bit of a cycle of growth again.”

Walker said paving streets is one of the services that suffered most in 2009.

“I wish we could’ve paved a little bit more,” he said. “We had a great maintenance program where we paved every year. Then the price of oil, which is the biggest part of liquid asphalt, went sky high. So it’s been tough to pave and maintain your streets.

“While the revenue from gas taxes might’ve flattened out, the thing that you’re buying with that tax doubled. We are trying to get some monies in place, but we do have our downtown mall project going on. We’ll be trying to get a grasp on how much cost that will be beyond the federal monies we have in place. Hopefully, we’ll have enough left from that to start a paving project this summer.”

Walker’s chief concern for the upcoming year is providing city departments with the equipment and technology to do their work more effectively.

“We want to take care of our employees and make sure they’re well-equipped to do their jobs,” he said. “We’ll certainly want to update equipment in the police department. From there we’ll look at all departments as far as equipment needs. We’ve kind of got an established plan for that.”

Walker said the “established plan” depends on revenues, but he thinks the city’s share of sales tax money will increase in 2010.

Despite the economic difficulties, Walker said he never considered recommending an increase in the city’s sales tax, which is just 7 percent.

“Boaz remains the lowest sales tax city in the state of Alabama, and my job is to try to keep taxes as low as I can where we live,” he said.

The mayor said finishing the major downtown mall renovation project before October’s Harvest Festival and boosting job opportunities on Sand Mountain are his priorities for the next year.

“I want to improve employment figures, so that people without jobs have some opportunities,” Walker said. “I think we’ve done some good things by purchasing some land and property for that cycle when the economy’s better.

“A lot of folks say they’re waiting on Washington or Montgomery to bail us out. To me nobody will bail us out like our local community will.”

Walker said at least one retail store and one manufacturer have recently looked at Boaz, but he could not release any details.

“We do have another retail store in negotiations,” the mayor said. “I’m pretty sure they’re coming, but I can’t say the name because I’m not sure if they’ve signed the lease yet.

“And I know the Marshall County Economic Development Council has shown the building out on Coosa Road to a prominent manufacturer in the auto industry.”

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Serving Albertville and the Sand Mountain region

Publisher: Ben Shurett

1603 Progress Drive
Albertville, Alabama 35950

Tel: 256-840-3000 | Email

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