YOUNGSVILLE, La. (KLFY) – The Youngsville City Council passed a new budget, which they say addresses resident’s drainage concerns.

The city council has allocated almost $1.5 million just for drainage.

To put that in perspective, the city spent around $600,000 on drainage last year.

Mayor Ken Ritter said this may be the most money allocated towards drainage in the city’s history.

Councilman Matt Romero said this time around the council is taking an aggressive approach.

“We have several years, about five years now where improvements haven’t been done just because we thought things were okay. Now since December, we’ve dredged and cleaned out 19 miles of drainage,” Romero said.

The budget includes money to update sewer infrastructure for better drainage, according to Councilman Jamison Abshire.

The city also plans to look at water flow in certain neighborhoods regarding retention ponds.

“It doesn’t just specifically pertain to one area. We’ve got to look at all of Youngsville and we have a lot of areas that need to be cleaned out. They haven’t been cleaned out in quite some time,” Abshire said.

The city also plans to add more equipment and three more employees to the public works department.

It’s all being funded through sales tax dollars.

“Of course a lot of these are coming in from different dedicated taxes, some of them self-imposed throughout the years, which is great because were able to pick and choose these projects and allocate them and know that we have guaranteed funding,” Romero said.

Residents who addressed the Council Monday night asked officials to not forget about the neighborhoods and those who lost everything in the floods.

Council members say they’ve been working on clearing the outside coulees first before tackling the city.

“It goes unseen and I see people’s frustration to think that we’re not doing anything. We’re definitely doing it it’s not just one part of town that were working in,” Abshire said.

For now, it’s waiting for the sales tax revenues to come in so the drainage projects can begin.

Also in the budget, Monday council members voted to give Youngsville Police Officers a 10 percent raise.

The new budget goes into place July 1.