The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Scaled down budget OK'd
City sees cuts in services, programs but no tax increase
By Brian Cox, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: May 24, 2007
Holding to Milan Mayor Owen Diaz's aims to balance the city's budget without raising taxes, the City Council Monday approved a $5 million 2007-08 budget that maintains the city's millage at 15.5 mills.
Advertisement
But it came at a price of roughly $700,000 in costs hacked from a range of programs and departments, including cuts needed to come up with a $950,000 bond payment on the waste water treatment plant.
"My budget I presented is based on the facts," Diaz told the council. "It's a prudent decision."
In the past seven months, the city's budget has been trimmed 28 percent, Bishop said.
"We've done what we can seriously do without impacting public services," said City Administrator Dan Bishop. "It was everyone pulling together to make this happen."
There were no comments from residents during the public hearing held before the budget's passage.
Councilman Michael Armitage, who plans to resign in July to campaign for mayor, attempted to garner support for passing the budget with an amendment that would have prevented the laying off of a patrol officer and restored funding $1,600 for the police department's Nextel phones.
He also called for a staff report from Milan Police Chief Jeffrey Lewis within 120 days, indicating the report would provide clarity on whether a reduction in the police force might jeopardize public safety.
"I don't think we're going out of our realm in asking for this information," said Armitage, who has strongly opposed cuts in the police department's budget, which came at the mayor's urging.
"I don't like us micro-managing the police department," said City Council Trustee Martha Churchill. "I do not like the idea of telling the police chief what reports he has to give us."
Churchill joined council members Jim Latham, Tim Gibelyou, Doug Gilson and Diaz in voting down the proposed amendment. Council Trustee Brett Moyer sided with Armitage.
Immediately in the wake of his amendment proposal's death, Armitage moved to adopt the budget as presented.
"We put too much time and work into this," he said. "It's time to move on. All in all, besides that one issue, I believe it's a good budget."
The council approved the budget unanimously.
Departments citywide took hits compared to last year's budget, including cuts of 6.26 percent from the clerk/treasurer fund, 15.29 percent from the building maintenance fund, 3.57 percent from the police department, 32.9 percent from the building fund, 91 percent of the planning and zoning commission fund, 4.5 percent from the Department of Public Works, and 88.3 percent from the community promotion fund.
In all, 15 full-time positions were eliminated, including a code enforcement officer, the Downtown Development Authority director, a custodian and a police officer. Eight employees took part in an early-retirement offer and other vacated positions were not filled.
Milan Public Transit is on the verge of closing, pending a possible contract agreement with another transportation provider, after the council withdrew its $95,000 annual subsidy.
The Milan Parks and Recreation Department slashed its total salaries $70,000 compared to last year.
Some of the city's services have been privatized, including landscape maintenance and water and sewer management.
Funding was eliminated for the summer concert series, the trees lighting festival, the Milan Fair fireworks, the city's newsletter and the beautification account. In contrast, the city spent $23,918 on community promotions in 2005-06.
No capital improvements to streets are planned.
"These have been very hard, difficult and controversial decisions," Latham said.
Bishop said with the passage of the budget it was time to turn attention to the city's infrastructure, looking to replace the city's aging sewer and water system and some roads.
"Hopefully, we've found the bottom," he said. "Now we can start digging ourselves out."
Staff Writer Brian Cox can be reached at 429-7380 or bcox@heritage.com.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
Expanded
Web
Coverage
Staff Blog, "Inside The Newsroom"
TOP JOBS
