Wed. Feb 12th, 2025

Marion Mayor proposes plan to spend $160,000 on office furniture

By Emily Bontrager Jan 23, 2025

In Monday’s City Council Budget Committee Meeting, Marion Mayor Ronald Morrell Jr. presented a bid to replace some furniture in various office suites. 

The proposed budget for the project is $160,000 and would come out of Marion’s general fund. 

“So, the city building was built in, I believe, 1980, and the majority of the furniture is still the same furniture we had from then,” Morrell said. “So we have a plethora of desks and chairs that are quite frankly falling apart over the years, and now it’s time to upgrade the city furniture.”

City Council President Nick McKinley also said that a lot of the city furniture is long overdue for an update. 

“A lot of this furniture, if it gets moved one more time, it’s going to fall apart,” McKinley said. 

Gary Fordyce, the vice president of City Council, said that he agrees that the furniture needs to be replaced, but that it is too expensive to replace everything this year. 

“I think we need to do it in stages in the next couple years, and that that would be a more adequate spending as far as I’m concerned,” Fordyce said. 

McKinley said during the meeting that he was concerned about the price of some of the items included in the plan. 

“I don’t know if the math was right, but it seemed like the average price of the conference room chairs was like $500,” McKinley said. 

Fordyce said that some of the city furniture had already been replaced by the previous administration. The budget for that replacement was less than half of what Morrell proposed.

“I’m not 100% sure on what needs to be replaced because I haven’t gone into every exact office and looked at every desk and every chair and everything but I think I need to see that,” Fordyce said. “You know, some departments need it worse than others and I think we should just prioritize it to a point and make sure, you know, the tax dollars are spent to the best, responsible way that we can spend them.”

Morrell said that if he moves forward with the plan, the bid will have to go through three readings with the City Council. 

“If all goes well it will be (approved) the first meeting in March,” Morrell said.