Published: April 04, 2008 10:08 am      

Mayor reveals alternate budget

Cuts hit police, fire departments hardest

DANVILLE — Instead of cutting nine firefighters in the city’s proposed $38.7 million 2008-09 budget, one vacant position each in the police and fire departments have been eliminated, in addition to other miscellaneous cuts to make up the needed $325,000 difference.

Mayor Scott Eisenhauer revealed the alternative cuts late Thursday afternoon. They total $327,644.

“It’s about $2,644 more than what was needed to balance the budget,” Eisenhauer said.

The fire and police departments have the highest expenses in the budget and were hit the hardest in the alternative cuts.

Eliminated was a vacant records clerk position in the police department with a salary listed of $23,046, and a vacant fire department position after the department did away with the fire prevention officer, listed at $40,000.

“Both were vacant (and) we had no intention to fill those this year anyway,” Eisenhauer said.

They’d been left in the budget in the past to possibly fill.

Also in the fire department budget, Eisenhauer originally had set aside $45,000 for retirements.

“We’re not anticipating any this year,” he said. “If there are, we will not fill (the position). Then we’ll use the savings from the salary and pay (the salary savings) out to the retiree.”

Also in the fire department budget, money has been eliminated for training and travel and clothing, among other items.

Eisenhauer has put in $50,000 in new revenues based on the firefighters’ previous statements.

Firefighters have said they want to form a joint committee to come up with more ways the department can generate revenue, such as through inspections.

Other alternative cuts in the budget included a “lot of knickknacks,” as Eisenhauer called them.

He made cuts to travel and other expenses, contractual services, legal services, gasoline costs, computer supplies, materials to maintain vehicles by $7,000 and reduced miscellaneous items and electricity in the streets budget by $7,000.

While the Public Works Department already had seen some budget cuts, Director Doug Ahrens said of these new cuts “we’ll work with whatever we have available. We’ll use all our available resources.”

Eisenhauer also eliminated funding for historic preservation and the Main Street program, $1,000 each, and eliminated $36,000 out of the general liability min/max insurance fund.

Eisenhauer said the city exited the latter when it went self-insured two years ago. However, the fund was left open for open claims the city hopes to close this year.

“We won’t need the dollars any longer,” he said.

The new budget cuts follow Tuesday’s budget hearing at the city council meeting in which a majority of aldermen voted to add nine firefighter positions back into the budget that Eisenhauer originally cut out.

This left a deficit budget for the city to initially put on public display.

Final action on the budget by the council will come April 15 for the budget to go into effect May 1.

Eisenhauer said the best thing he can say about the new budget is that it’s balanced.

“It’s one I think everybody can vote on. It in no way satisfies any long-term goals,” Eisenhauer said.

“Quite frankly, all we’ve done is place a band-aid over the wound,” he said. “Yes, it will stop the bleeding for six months. But none of these are long-term solutions for the budget. They’ll carry us over for six months.

“I don’t like to do a budget that way,” he added.

He said his last-minute cuts only meet the short-term needs of balancing the budget. They do not address long-term economic concerns of the city including an-nual expenditure increases.

“And in no way does this set us in any better financial position than we were six months ago. And very honestly, six month from now when we’re talking about the property tax levy, we’ll have to repeat the same discussions,” Eisenhauer said.