DALTON, Ga. — The baseball and softball fields at Heritage Point Park could get spruced up next year.

The members of the Dalton City Council held a public hearing on the proposed 2017 budget on Tuesday. The proposed budget, which would be balanced, calls for $32.4 million in spending, down from $33.1 million in spending in the 2016 budget.

One of the line items in the budget is $137,640 in hotel/motel tax revenue for the Softball Players Association (SPA) tournaments, up from $47,675 in the 2016 budget. Officials said most of that increase will go toward improvements at the fields at Heritage Point Park.

“The SPA has been here for 11 years with four tournaments and generates about $2 million a year in economic impact, and they will be coming back next year with a fifth tournament,” said Director of Tourism Brett Huske. “A year ago, the SPA director began to mention that the scoreboards were old and weren’t functioning properly and the fields needed some work. That will help keep the SPA coming back, and it will also benefit those who play on the fields when the SPA tournaments are not in town.”

But the budget also calls for cutting $23,360 in hotel/motel tax funding for the Dalton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), which has Huske concerned.

The city and Whitfield County had for several years provided $173,360 each to the CVB, but the Board of Commissioners in its 2017 budget approved earlier this week set its funding at $150,000, and the city is cutting funding to keep the funding level equal. Huske says that is not what the city has done in the past and he hopes city officials will reconsider this year.

“In 2012, 2013 and 2014, the county decreased to $150,000, then in 2015 we asked them to reinstate to $173,360, which they did for the last two years,” Huske said. “But during the time that the county cut its funding the city did not.”

Spending on technology would drop to $242,945 from $353,185. Capital spending would drop to $81,635 from $1.6 million.

The budget would be balanced, with $32.4 million in revenue. Dalton Utilities pays the city 5 percent of its total revenue each year, and that transfer fee will be the city’s single largest source of revenue in 2017 at $10.8 million, up from $10 million in 2016.

Property taxes are the second-largest source of revenue at $7.9 million, down from $7.96 million this year.

The City Council is scheduled to vote on the 2017 budget during a special called meeting on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in the City Hall council chamber. The proposed budget is available for inspection by the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Finance Office at City Hall.