Mayor George Flaggs Jr. wants to put the city’s community service program on probation.

Flaggs said at a Monday work session of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen he wants to give the program six months to show it can operate at least at a break-even point. If it can’t, he wants to go out for bids to see if the city can hire a private company to manage the program for less than the program’s $400,000 budget.

“I vote for getting rid of community service and privatizing (its management), but I’ll compromise,” Flaggs told community service supervisor Robert Hubbard. “If you can get community service down to $240,000 and show me in six months that it’s a cost benefit to the citizens, we can keep it.”

The board is expected to vote on the proposed probationary period Sept. 15.

Community service offers people convicted of misdemeanors in Municipal Court but unable pay their fines an opportunity to work them off by picking up trash and doing other projects for the city at a rate of $7.25 an hour, which goes to pay off the fine. The program has about 25 people per day working to collect trash and pickup recyclables in the city.

“These are people who have declared they cannot pay (their fines) and the court has determined they cannot pay their fines,” Municipal Judge Toni Terrett said.

The program’s fiscal 2014 budget is about $425,000. In fiscal 2013, the program returned an estimated $205,000 in paid off fines, less than half of its $479,000 budget for that year.

City officials have been reviewing the program for ways to reduce its cost, including two plans that would lay off five of the program’s 10 employees. North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield said one version of the plan could save the city between $105,000 to $125,000 a year.

“For the taxpayers’ benefit, what is community service for?” Hubbard said. “It’s to keep the city clean. Is it worth $200,000? You’re going to have to pay it, one way or the other. … You’re still going to have to pay for community service.”

“I can go get four of my cousins out of prison and give them 25 people today, and clean this city up for less than $100,000,” Flaggs said, “and they’d be great supervisors, because all they’ve been thinking about is managing people. They study that in prison.”

“It’s a no-brainer — $479,000 and you only recoup $200,000,” Flags said. “Let’s get real. Let’s look at this.”

“We have to make that difference up,” Mayfield said.

“The key here is, what is it costing you to do the job, and if you’re getting $200,000 and you’re putting out $450,000, then you know you’re losing. It’s costing you, and this is not supposed to be a plan that costs the taxpayers money.”

He instructed Hubbard to prepare a work schedule and meet with Mayfield to develop a plan to operate and manage the program for $245,000.

“Mr. Hubbard, if you can make that work, you’ve got community service for another six months,” Flaggs said, “The plight of community service is in your hands.”

In another matter:

• The board set an Oct. 6 public hearing at the City Hall Annex for proposed increases in fees for opening and closing graves, and changes in the city’s cemetery regulations.