The Stuart City Council approved to move forward with proceedings to issue a $400,000 bond, along with increasing the current salaries and hiring additional officers for the police department Tuesday evening.

The special city council meeting lasted over three and a half hours, which included several citizens voicing their support for the department’s proposal to increase their staff to four officers, raise their base salaries to be more comparable to similar departments, and increase their vehicle budget, totaling $124,822. The city’s financial advisor Chip Schultz from Northland Securities presented exhibits of various levy scenarios if the City issued a general corporate purpose loan. With a three-year structure this would add about $2 per $1,000 of valuated property taxes.

Chief Dave Reha gave his opinion on the situation, while acknowledging former Stuart police officer and Adair County Chief Deputy Michael Algreen, “We have tried and tried and tried every year I’ve been here. We’ve tried to figure out ways to fix this. We’ve compared salaries, we’ve looked at hours, we’ve tried to do different schedules. How many different schedules did we do Mike (Algreen) when you were here? And Mike was right here with us five years ago saying, ‘Please, fix this, guys.’”

The Council approved three motions at the end of the meeting, which resulted in a couple rounds of applause from the public: the first to move forward with proceedings for the bond to fund police and emergency medical services expenses, which will involve a public hearing at a later date. The second to allow an amount not exceeding $60,000 for two years of vehicle funding; and the third to approve the officers salaries at a base of $70,000 for Reha, $55,000 for Katie Guisinger, $45,000 for the third and fourth officer, with the fourth officer to currently be part time to allow them to apply for a federal grant program, and $10,000 for paid vacation.