The Aberdeen City Council approved a 2017 budget Wednesday without funding for a city administrator. But it did restore enough money to hire a building inspector, a position that also has been referred to as a rental property inspector.

Council member Peter Schave made the motion to remove the $45,000 slated to pay for a city administrator to be employed during the last three months of 2017. He said the concept hadn’t received enough discussion.

“I don’t even have a clue if we need one,” Schave said.

Four citizens spoke to the council about the inspector position. Three were against it.

Council members, however, cited the hiring of a second inspector as the primary need and played down the employee’s function as a rental property inspector — the job title used by Mayor Erik Larson when he presented the budget to the council back in November with the idea of improving living conditions in rental properties.

The Building Department only has one building inspector and not long ago had four such inspectors.

Councilor Tawni Andrews pointed out that the program wasn’t even in place and that rental inspections wouldn’t be the employee’s “sole purpose.”

This employee will be funded for at least three quarters of the year and start in March or April. Full-year funding would have been $78,200 for pay and benefits but to reflect a partial year of employment the amount was reduced to roughly $61,000.

The council also voted down the addition to the budget of $75,000 to erect a security fence around the police department parking lot. Larson said other, less expensive security measures should be implemented now because the Police Department’s headquarters are in poor shape. Department facilities may be in for major capital changes and it could be wasted money if there are major changes upcoming, he said.

Also added was $35,000 for a dump truck to be used by the street department.

The council was scheduled to approve the budget Dec. 14, but postponed doing so because many members had questions about some of the items included, such as the city administrator and the inspector. They held a second budget workshop last week to discuss some of these matters.