ASHVILLE — It’s been just over a year since the current Argo town council took office, inheriting a budget crisis that nearly brought the town to the breaking point.

“Last year, looking at it, it was scary,” mayor Paul Jennings said.

Circumstances still aren’t ideal more than a year later. However, as Jennings and councilman Herschel Phillips told the St. Clair County Commission Thursday, things are steadily improving.

“We hope,” said Phillips. “We were way under water, and we’re almost back up.”

Jennings and Phillips left the commission work session with reason to feel even better about the town’s financial situation — commissioner Ken Crowe, himself a new appointee, proposed the county offer some help, both in money and in services.

At its Tuesday meeting, the commission approved all of his proposals unanimously.

“I met with these two (Jennings and Phillips), and we’re gonna try to help them out,” Crowe said.

Crowe – the commissioner for District 3 — proposed the following triad to aid Argo:

• A $100,000 general fund budget amendment for “capital improvements,” with the understanding that the town pay back more than $30,000 it owes for E-911 and juvenile detention services.

• A $10,000 contribution out of bingo funds, to help the town finish its senior citizen center (part of the new Argo Municipal Complex).

• The services of the county’s road department to complete the parking lot of the municipal complex.

“It should help us,” Jennings said. “I don’t know, we’re still gonna work on the budget numbers, but it should help us be able to do what it was meant to do, to help us get at least the fire department into the new building.”

At its regular meeting on Monday, Nov. 2, the council voted to continue the FY09 budget for one more month. The mayor said he believes it will be ready for approval by Monday, Dec. 7.

“I think we’re about $30,000 on making it work,” he said.

Jennings added that getting municipal complex operational might also allow the town to use it as a polling place in 2010. Currently, the town’s polling place is Corinth Baptist Church.

“We’re glad, right now, it’s set up where our people would vote at Corinth Baptist Church,” he said. “First time Argo’s ever got to have a box. We’re glad if we have to vote at Corinth.

“But if we can get that building in shape, with the county’s help monetarily, physically, we’ll do the best we can to get the entire building ready. I think we’re stretching it a little, but we can definitely get the fire department in and the senior citizens area.”

Earlier this year, the council approved a $1.7 million loan from the Alabama Municipal Fund (a leg of the stat’es League of Municipalities) in order to complete the construction of the building. Jennings said the town plans to have Alabama Power visit its complex as well, in order to estimate what a monthly power bill might be.

“That’s what scares me,” he said. “We can probably get close to getting in the building, but if you get in there and can’t pay the power bill, there’s no need to open it up.”

The mayor also praised his council for its efforts in getting the town to this point.

“It’s evident, when you come to one of our meetings … we vote our own conscience,” he said. We’ve voted differently, and after the meeting go and have dinner. It’s not like it’s a fight.

“We don’t want to be up on top skiing, we just want to be able to breathe.”

Those efforts also received praise from the commissioners.

“Just keeping up through the grapevine, y’all have done a great job,” commissioner Jeff Brown said. “Y’all were in the news a whole lot, and all that’s died down. I think you’ve done a great job.”