By Kathy McCarty
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Councilors unanimously approved the 2014 municipal budget for $13,093,636 at Monday night’s meeting — a reduction of $334,473 from the $13,428,109 that was proposed in October when councilors first began discussing next year’s budget. At the beginning of the Dec. 9 session, City Manager Jim Bennett provided the council with a spreadsheet noting the adjustments he recommended be made to come up with the more than $300,000 in cuts needed to reach the desired goal of just over $13 million.
“The spreadsheet shows the budget as it was presented Oct. 7. At that time the city needed $334,473 in decreases to keep the city share of the tax assessment with no increase for 2014. All of the changes that were presented on Dec. 4 are outlined on page one showing the adjusted budget for each department,” said Bennett.
A second sheet gave a detailed account of the adjustments, including decreases in health insurance costs, closing of the indoor pool, reduction of the fire department’s reserve account and other cuts.
Though cuts to staffing at both the fire and police departments were brought up as ways to reduce the city’s expenses, Bennett told councilors during the Dec. 4 workshop that he felt “we’re at the right staffing levels for what services we want.”
“Anything less will affect service levels,” said Bennett.
Bennett gave councilors an opportunity to make changes prior to voting but none were made.
“If the council is comfortable with all you did through Wednesday (last week’s budget workshop), you can move to approve all adjustments Pat (Webb, finance director) made,” said Bennett.
Councilor Dick Engels made the motion to adopt the amendments to the city’s general fund budget summary for 2014, with a second by Councilor Bruce Sargent and unanimous approval by all.
Bennett then asked if councilors had any other amendments they’d like to make to the overall budget. Engels made a motion that the request for dues from NMDC be removed from the budget and moved equally to the development portion of the budget, with all councilors voting in favor of the motion.
Bennett advised that dues aren’t technically due until July and that if nothing changes, come July the city would no longer be a member. Engels noted that the money would remain in the budget, should the city choose to rejoin.
Taxes won’t be going up on the municipal side for 2014, but Bennett said that likely won’t be the case on the school side.
“If the school budget comes in at less than last year, in theory we could come in flat. But it could go up $411,000 or 82 cents (per $1,000 in valuation) on the tax rate for the year,” said Bennett.
Engels made the motion to adopt the amended budget as proposed, with a second from Councilor Randy Smith and unanimous approval by the Council.
