Purcell’s City Fathers approved the city’s budget and the budget for Purcell Municipal Hospital on Monday during their June meeting at the Purcell Police Station Community Room.

The city’s budget for FY 2025-2026 is $35,831,032 while the hospital’s FY ‘25-’26 revenue budget is $36,332,690.

Big ticket items for the city are the police, fire, electric and street departments.

The electric department has the largest budget at $5,447,344 followed by the police at $2,938,048, fire at $1,701,920 and street at $1,111,949.

PMH Operations Finance Manager Renee Barber told the council the hospital is holding steady.

“Health care is very tumultuous right now,” Barber said. “We have been working very hard to lower our expenses.”

Part of the reason the hospital is doing better is due to out-patient procedures, which is up about $3 million over last year.

Interim City Manager touched on the closing of the Red Hill stairs in his report.

Photos of the erosion underneath the stairs was presented and the council discussed what is being done to get the stairs back in safe condition for the public to utilize.

A meeting is set for Thursday with an engineer. The Red Cedar issue was also discussed.

Once a plan is in place, the council will begin to rectify both issues.

The council approved the Smith-Roberts Amended Fee Schedule of $19,740 for prep on acquisition of three additional properties and the easement from city to ODOT at SH 74 and I-35.

The city will receive $5,450 from ODOT.

The Special Events ordinance was discussed.  Council members are to review it and make recommendations.

The council approved $49,750.25 to Caesar Martinez to do the Main Street landscaping.

There was additional discussion concerning Arbors drainage/runoff.  The developer and several residents were present at the meeting.

The FOP and IAFF contracts are still in negotiation.  The council will have a special meeting later this month concerning those contracts.

Currently, the city has four water wells that are down.

Water department personnel believe lightning strikes are the culprit.

So far, however, the city has been able to keep up with water demand.