City Council Gets First Look At Proposed Fiscal Budget <br>Necessary Cuts Discussed Due to New Census

The City Council had a chance to ask questions about next year’s fiscal budget when they met with the City Administrator and budget administrators Tuesday night.

John Roche, City Administrator, gave an overview of the proposed budget to make the process a little clearer for the public.

The money the city is trying to budget is given to Winslow by the federal government based on the Census 2000 findings. The new count indicated the population had dropped from 12,000 people to 9,500, which means the city will loose $600,000 of governmental funding through shared income. This count will remain official until the census is again conducted in 2010.

Because of the loss, each program that receives funding from the city was asked to look closely at their proposed budgets and make cuts where possible.

In his overview, Roche said the cuts would not be taken just from city departments, but the non-profit part of the budget would also receive some cuts.

Some cuts Roche proposed included the D.A.R.E. program. In past years, D.A.R.E. received funding from both the city and WUSD, resulting in grades K-8 receiving instruction in its drug- and alcohol-free curriculum. Roche proposed the fund from the city be withdrawn altogether and the program just run off the school’s funding. Police Chief Stephen Garnett said the $10,000 provided by WUSD would reduce D.A.R.E. to a skeleton program. Those cuts mean the program would only be able to address the 5th grade curriculum, as that is the grade considered most influenced by the drug education program.

Another non-profit cut proposed by the city administrator would be that the city no longer pay for umpires for the Little League. Roche said he knew of no other city that paid this expense for their Little League program. The city has paid for the season the organization is currently in, but next year would be on a volunteer basis or it would be up to the organization to come up with the $10,000 to pay the umpires through fundraising.

The city will continue to mow the Little League fields despite the removal of umpire funding.

Roche suggested some ways to increase the city’s revenue including adding a Bar and Restaurant tax. He said to further consider this option, a consultant could be hired to conduct a phone survey of residents to see if they felt this was a good idea.

Another way Roche proposed to save money was to have all new city-employed retirees join the state’s insurance plan.

After the overview, representatives from city departments had a chance to answer questions the council had about their proposed budget.

The council met again on Thursday to further discuss the budget.

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