Aldermen review budget deficits

BY JENNIFER BAILEY
Commercial-News

DANVILLE December 02, 2008 11:17 pm

— Firefighter, police and other union positions are safe from budget cuts for the moment.
Mayor Scott Eisenhauer presented a rough 2009-10 budget draft for aldermen to review as part of tax levy discussions at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
The budget includes the elimination of positions, which Eisenhauer won’t announce until January with a formally proposed budget, to address $465,407 of a $1.1 million projected budget deficit.
He and Comptroller Gayle Brandon already had eliminated $496,991 in expenditures as part of an original projected $1.6 million budget deficit.
But at least another $662,358 must be cut to balance the city’s budget projected at $24.2 million, up from this year’s $22.9 million budget.
Eisenhauer said the budget rough draft currently includes a 5.1 percent increase in expenditures, including increases in salaries and benefits, utilities and materials.
The new budget is again showing a 0 percent increase in revenues, with the city currently seeing a .08 percent increase in revenues from a year ago, according to Eisenhauer.
Eisenhauer added that if aldermen, as Ward 7 Alderman Steve Foster and Ward 6 Alderman Steve Nichols have suggested, want to find more budget cuts instead of increasing the property tax levy by almost 8 percent, the projected budget deficit would be more than $1.1 million.
There are not a lot more non-union positions left after the cuts, Eisenhauer said.
He added that union representatives have approached him to offer additional recommendations endorsed by their membership to cut expenditures. He will review those.
Eisenhauer received 92 other suggestions from city employees on cutting expenditures.
City officials also are concerned about pension rates of return decreasing.
Ward 7 Alderman Ron Candido said if city officials only cut personnel to meet the budget deficit, they could look to cut as many as 40 to 50 employees over two years.
The city council will act on the proposed $6.9 million levy on Dec. 16.
Vacant buildings
Danville Planning and Zoning Manager Chris Milliken estimates there are 100-120 residential structures and 35-50 commercial properties that would initially be subject to the vacant building registration program the city council approved Tuesday night.
Aldermen Bill Gilbert, Lois Cooper and Tommie Reed voted against it. Dale Brandenburg was absent.
Milliken said Public Development staff will have a “starter list,” but will also be doing fieldwork to determine other buildings.
This will be done within 30 to 60 days, Milliken said.
The new ordinance, which will go into effect in January, requires vacant structure owners to register their properties with the city within 30 days, pay a $50 registration fee for a residential building and $100 for a commercial structure, and provide a plan stating whether the building will be rehabbed or knocked down in a time period not to exceed a year.
Exemptions include a building that is actively marketed for sale or rent for a 12-month period, but not a building that has been actively marketed more than a year preceding the ordinance going into effect.
Sharon Ringler, who wanted to rehabilitate a building in the west downtown Renaissance area, said the city has ordinances it now doesn’t enforce. City officials have allowed buildings to deteriorate.
She asked how city officials will enforce this new ordinance.
She supports registering the buildings, but not the fees.
“It’s not fair to the people who want to work with this town,” she said about local building owners.
She said the city should target and charge the fee to out-of-town owners who don’t care about the properties.
Ringler also pointed out that one year isn’t enough time in some cases to rehabilitate a building.
Corp. Counsel Dave Wesner said extensions can be granted.
Candido added that he thinks the ordinance is good. The city has spent more than $2.5 million in taxpayer dollars to demolish dilapidated structures.
In other business Tuesday, the council:
--Approved a revised zoning ordinance.
--Approved a three-year contract, retroactive to May 1, 2008 and extending to April 30, 2011, with Laborers’ International Un-ion of North America 703 for public works laborers.
The contract covers 54 employees and includes: a flexible lunch hour between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. to permit continuous opera-tions when appropriate, elimination of a 15-minute morning break, an annual $15 increase in health insurance for each of the contribution amounts and a one-time payment to the bargaining unit for achieving annual training standards and meeting inci-dent goals.
City officials noted that considering the value of the break and lunch modifications, $88,000 per year, the work rule changes more than cover the cost of annual base wage increases.