FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The city budget for the new fiscal year is on the agenda for the regular City Council meeting Monday evening.

The council is expected to adopt the budget or parts of it by resolution that night, City Council President Bob Gentle said Thursday.

“It’s going to be a flat budget this year,” he said, referring to the absence of major capital expenditures or projects. “The new council will probably have to focus on just delivering basic services.”

The current fiscal year started Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 20, 2009.

The proposed budget was delivered to the council recently by Mayor Tim Kant.

Monday’s meeting will be the first time the council has met in public to discuss the new budget, Gentle said.

“We have had in years past a work session to discuss the budget,” he said, referring to less formal council meetings held prior to regular meetings, which start at 5:30 p.m. the second and fourth Monday of each month. “I think we’re not having one this time, because it would have just been too political with the elections and all.”

Councilwoman Debbie Quinn published a lengthy letter to the editor in Wednesday’s Fairhope Courier criticizing some aspects of the budget process.

“The proposal was prepared and compiled by the mayor and administrative personnel, the council having no part in the budget preparation,” the letter stated. “This was the first time that the council saw the proposal. There has been no discussion of the proposed budget at our meetings.”

Alabama law for cities of Fairhope’s size gives ultimate authority for handling a city’s finances to the council. The statute gives the mayor the power as chief executive to implement policies of the council and to run the daily operations of city government.

It is unclear whether the council has ever asserted its authority to have a more dominant role in budget preparation, based on discussions with several council members.

Quinn indicated Thursday she may be seeking election as the council’s new president at the organizational meeting of the new council Nov. 3.

“We will be looking at some new ways of handling the budget process,” she said.

Gentle said a new strategic planning process will also change the way the budget process will be handled.

“It will require more input from the council and the public,” he said.

Although there is no legal requirement that a city like Fairhope have a budget at all, some cities have passed ordinances that do require one, such as in Daphne.

“We will also be looking at that,” Quinn said.

In cities that don’t require formal adoption of a budget by ordinance, they must approve certain expenditures, or “pay the bills” as it’s referred to at the end of one Fairhope City Council meeting each month, approving payments made for the month that has just passed.

Gentle said whether the budget on Monday’s agenda is adopted or not, the council will have to approve an expenditure regarding a certification process for the city’s waste water treatment process, which must take place in October.

Kant did not return a phone call seeking comment for this story.

The Alabama League of Municipalities makes the following statements about the budget process in its 2004 handbook for Alabama mayors and council members, after stating there are no legal requirements mandating a budget in most cities and towns.

“Nevertheless, municipal administration has become so complex that most cities and towns have adopted the practice of operating on a budget,” the handbook states. ”Budgeting is financial planning which involves detailed projection of revenues, expenditures and borrowing for a specified fiscal period. Usually the mayor, at the council’s request, submits recommendations which amount to a tentative budget for the coming fiscal year. Customarily, the mayor, as budget officer, and the council meet in conference to discuss, item by item, provisions of the tentative budget. After the conference, the council must determine the final form of the budget.”

“We may also be looking at how the work sessions work, or don’t work,” Quinn said, referring to those pre-meetings of the council, which start 30 minutes before the regular meetings.