GOOD HOPE — Employees of the City of Good Hope will be getting a raise in the city’s 2019 budget, and the city’s schools will have access to extra funding through a new donation that has been established.

In the budget passed by the Good Hope City Council Monday night, there is a 3 percent raise for employees, along with the city’s usual donations to local agencies and schools that will all be coming from Good Hope’s alcohol revenues.

The donations include $1,500 to the Good Samaritan Health Clinic, $1,000 to the Margaret Jean Jones Center, $3,000 to Cullman Area Mental Health, $2,500 to Cullman Caring for Kids, $1,500 to Cullman County Soil and Water Conservation District, $2,500 to the North Alabama Agriplex, $1,500 to the Cullman County Emergency Management Agency and $8,975 to Cullman County AirMedCare Network/ Air Evac.

The city’s schools will also be getting their usual donations, with $14,000 going to Good Hope High School and $4,000 each going to Good Hope Primary, Elementary and Middle Schools.

Those donations will be used at the principals’ discretion, but the city has also created a new source of funding that will allow any of the schools’ sports or extracurricular programs to ask for additional funding for projects.

The city set aside $15,000 of its alcohol revenue to go into the fund, and teams and clubs will have until the summer to apply for funding. Once applications are in, the city council will review each of them and determine which ones should be funded at the beginning of the new school year.

Good Hope Mayor Jerry Bartlett said the new process will give council members time to review and consider each request at the same time, instead of having clubs or teams individually come before the council to ask for money.

“We give a lot of money, and we want to,” he said. “And this is just a way of us looking at everybody.”

In other business:

The council passed Ordinance No. 019-2018 to amend the city’s personnel policy to include a tobacco free workplace.

The council also held the first reading of Ordinance No. 020-2018 to amend sewer rates.

The 10 percent rate increase will set the price of $11.23 for the first 3,000 gallons of water for residences and $38.49 for the first 3,000 gallons of water for businesses.

The rate increase should add up to around $1 extra per month for households, and is necessary to make sure the system keeps running smoothly and is ready for any expansions that could be coming in the future, Bartlett said.

“We have one of the lowest rates in the state of Alabama,” he said. “I think it’s justifiable and we’ve waited until the last possible minute not to go up on our rates, so we’re not trying to hurt anybody, that’s for sure.”

The ordinance will be up for a vote at the council’s next meeting on Oct.