Jamestown City Council members made the right move holding off, at least temporarily, on a shared services agreement with the Jamestown Public Schools District to plow sidewalks in the city.

The proposed agreement was first broached in early June and seemed straightforward — the school district would pay for the equipment while the city would pay to man the new sidewalk plows and maintain the equipment. Initially, the proposal was for the school district to pay the entire cost of the sidewalk plows. Then, Ryan Thompson, city comptroller, told council members during a June work session that the school district is going to contribute $250,000 for the plows with the city paying $56,000 of the equipment cost. The city is additionally paying about $675,000 over the course of four years to hire two Parks Department laborers, with the salaries to be paid with stimulus funding.

Council members also had unresolved questions about the legality accepting ARPA funding from the school district and whether it makes more sense to use seasonal or part-time employees rather than full-time employees to man the plows.

As has been the case with other stimulus-funded programs, City Council members and Mayor Eddie Sundquist’s team should do all they can to make sure the sidewalk plow program is as fiscally responsible as possible. Every dollar spent unnecessarily on one program is a dollar that can’t be spent somewhere else.

There were some who weren’t happy the council decided to table the shared services agreement. But waiting a month to have questions answered and possibly find ways to run the program more efficiently was the right move, especially after some of the details began shifting.