And I thought we only couldn't afford "C" and "I" anymore

Now we can't even afford whole words.

Head said she followed up Sept. 30 with each person who reported a missing sign to track the city's progress and was not happy with the results.

More than 45 percent of the signs had not been repaired or replaced compared to 28.4 percent that had been replaced. She said 25.9 percent of the people failed to respond to the update request.

"Constituents believe that Council members in some way have meaning in this city and we worked really hard to try to get the list of street signs and to try to help y'all do your job," Head said to Jernigan. " I am embarrassed that that diligence resulted in such abysmal failure on my part. I don't understand what happened and I think it's completely inexcusable."

The city has installed 8,200 signs this year including 2,700 street signs and is committed to installing an additional 300 street signs by the end of the year, Jernigan said.

The proposed 2014 budget would decrease the money for the city's traffic sign shop to $204,238 from $269,531.