The Jemison City Council passed a $2.9 million balanced budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year making it $150,000 more than the previous year.

Jemison Mayor Eddie Reed said the council met in an emergency meeting Dec. 4 to approve the budget due to having bills that needed to be paid.

The council met Dec. 3 at a regularly scheduled council meeting and tabled several agenda items including the 2012-2013 budget.

“We originally waited to pass the budget until our two new council members were sworn in,” Reed said. “After we waited we then had some council members that had some questions about some of the different line items within the budget but we couldn’t enter into 2013 without approving the new budget.”

Reed said the reasoning behind council members tabling the budget was so several of the council members could review various line items before approving the budget.

“Some of the council members needed to verify some of the line items in the budget before we could officially approve everything,” Reed said. “After we went through the line items we approved the budget because we could not enter into 2013 without approving the new budget due to bills that we owed and people needing to receive money.”

Reed said all council members were present at the emergency meeting and all eight departments within the city did not go over the 2011-2012 budget or stayed the same as last year.

“We are very proud of this year’s budget,” Reed said. “It is a balanced budget and the city of Jemison is on the right road to moving out of the economic recession we have been in the last two years with the tough economy.”

Reed said during the emergency meeting council members also voted to approve $5,000 to Child Protect program and $1,500 for the PEECH program. Both of the items were previously tabled at the Dec. 3 meeting.