Several last-minute city budget adjustments totaling about $450,000 were approved by the Jersey Village City Council Aug. 20 for the fiscal year that began last October and ends Sept. 30.

The council approved amending the budget in the amount of $400,000 to account for water purchased from the City of Houston. The money used to purchase the water should be returned, in addition to a little extra through sales, said Danny Segundo, public works director.

"We are proposing that we'll receive bills around $120 and $150 as [customers] have continued to see some high usage in these summer months," he said.

City Council also approved amending the budget by $25,000 to cover the electricity costs for the remainder of this fiscal year ending next month. The amount of electricity use in recent years coincides with the city's average, but the account had not been adjusted to reflect increased fees. There is currently a deficit in the account, Segundo said.

"Not to say that this was an oversight, but we noticed that the last couple years of [our] account needed to be adjusted," he said. "We need to correct that. The average monthly cost for billing is between $10 and $12, which includes the fire and police departments."

Additionally, Fire Chief Mark Bitz requested an amendment to the budget in the amount of $26,337 to purchase a new Jaws of Life unit.

"We have suffered a catastrophic failure with our current Jaws of Life," Bitz said. "It is a dual unit, which means we can use two tools at the same time. One side has failed. For some reason, [the] hydraulic fluid has somehow been contaminated with something—we are not sure exactly what. We are borrowing a unit from Cy-Fair [VFD] right now, which we are hoping to return to them soon."

The units will be purchased from Metro Fire Apparatus Specialists Inc. The current Jaws of Life used by the fire department are 6 years old. The expected life for this type of equipment is estimated to be at least 10 years. The new units purchased will be interchangeable with the working Jaws of Life currently in use, Bitz said.