Council considers options to keep police
Published 12:00 am Friday, February 25, 2000
It’s back to the drawing board for Ironton City Council and the 2000 annual operating budget.
Friday, February 25, 2000
It’s back to the drawing board for Ironton City Council and the 2000 annual operating budget.
At council’s regular meeting Thursday, councilman Jim Tordiff proposed a newly-adopted budget amendment that would allow the city the means to keep two of the five officers who are facing layoffs next week.
Although the amendment passed, council and city administration are still working on other options. The amended budget will receive third reading at the March 9 regular council meeting, at which time it could receive a vote.
The amendment includes reducing the industrial recruitment department by half, which would require waiting until July 1 to hire a city recruiter, as well as a 10 percent office supply line item cut across the board.
But, the budget also can be revised, re-amended or otherwise changed before that time, Tordiff said.
"While I’m proposing this amendment, I’m not requesting a suspension of rules for third reading tonight," Tordiff told council members Thursday before the amendment vote. "There were other worthy proposals that the individuals need time to follow up on, and all I’m trying to do is get this on the floor so that if other things do not pan out, we have something in front of us that would be able to be adoptable at the third and final reading of the budget."
Other plans include further exploration of a potential $2 temporary safety fee, the possibility that city workers will forgo their owed 2 percent wage increase this year, adjustments in departments other than those outlined in Tordiff’s amendment and still others.
"As it has been stated by a number of people during the many meetings that finance committee and council have had for the purpose of trying to determine what is the best approach to solving the budget dilemma, we are still working to come up with the best solution for all those concerned," councilman Joe Black said.
Black, who, with council member Jesse Roberts, voted against the amendment proposed by Tordiff, said he could not support cutting the industrial development department budget in half.
Even without the economic blows the city has suffered this year, with depleted grant funding, the city might not have been able to keep the officers, Black explained.
"I have some reservations about the amendment, the main one being that I believe to wait until July to hire an industrial recruiter is a six-month delay in a project we, as a city, cannot afford to wait on," he said. "Even if we would have had the revenue this year at the same level as we had last year, the grant money was still gone. Every council member was hopeful and desirous that we could underwrite the funding for these officers, but because of the payroll stipulations that the City of Ashland, Ky., enacted last year and because of the income tax reciprocity legislation we have with that city, we are going to lose between $100,000 and $150,000 in revenues that aren’t even in this budget."
To lose sight of the necessity for economic recovery will not aid the city in the long run, Black said.
"We have to take charge of our own destiny," he said. "Until we do that, we are not going to move forward. I am certainly open to any and all ideas that will put the city in a better situation financially, but waiting longer for an industrial development department, in my opinion, will not help our situation."
Despite that fact, Black said he is still open to all options that will move the city forward.
"I want to keep all five officers – I really feel like the staffing levels we currently have in the department are the staffing levels we need to have," he said. "I am willing to listen to what the administration has to propose in addition to what we have already talked about."
Council member Leo Ulery, who took the chair temporarily Thursday to allow Tordiff to present the budget amendment, also is open to suggestions.
"At a finance committee meeting 10 days ago, when we discussed keeping at least a few of the officers, I asked for them to show me the money and I’d be willing to compromise," he said."I hope that everyone understands the Cops Fast program has been gradually depleting for three years. I will support this amendment, however, because this is a way to keep some of the officers on the streets protecting our citizens."
Roberts, however, also remains concerned about waiting to hire an industrial recruiter.
"The problem we have is that we don’t know which way to go – we need officers and we need more jobs," Roberts said. "But, my concern is, that if we sit here and say six months from now we are going to hire a recruiter but right now we are going to employ police officers, while that is great, what are we going to do six months from now if we have had no contacts made, have done nothing to find revenue that will continue to support those officers and every other department in this city."
Council members agreed to continue working on a viable solution for the budget. The next regularly scheduled council meeting will begin at 6 p.m. March 9 at the Ironton City Center.