Huntington budget story

The Huntington City Council made an additional $867,000 in cuts in the adopted 2011 fiscal budget. Scott Caserta, city councilman from District 7 said the Council is leaving the decision as to the details of those cuts to Mayor Kim Wolfe.
The motor pool and floodwall divisions will likely receive the most in cuts with motor pool having an estimated decrease of $155,596 from its $653,036 proposed budget and floodwall having a cut of $120,345 from its proposed $648,677, according to the City of Huntington.

The City Council is aware that most of the cuts have the possibility of resulting in layoffs in 10 departments and 20-day furloughs for city employees. The Council made sure, however, that the police and fire departments will be exempt from any furloughs or layoffs, Caserta said. Police and fire originally had cuts in the mayor’s proposed budget in February, but the Council decided to put money back into those departments.

“We funded police and fire right off the bat because we want a safe and clean city,” Caserta said.

The Council’s changes were announced March 22 in the adopted budget. The money the Council put back into fire and police and the raised insurance program costs of $564,000 will contribute to making the budget increase from the proposed 39.54 million to $40.28 million.

Caserta said the City Council and the mayor will be working feverishly up until July 1 on ways to generate revenue to find the money they need to give to the fire and police departments and to avoid as much as possible the layoffs and furloughs in other departments.

“Ultimately, we do not want to cut any services and want to have the ability to actually increase services” Caserta said.

To make those goals possible, Wolfe said his main contingency plan may be to implement a 1 percent occupation tax under the city’s five-year home rule pilot program. If the city were to adopt the 1 percent occupation tax then the city’s $3-per-week user fee would be repealed.

Caserta said the city would abolish the user fee, which is a regressive tax that everyone has to pay and replace it with a fairer way to generate revenue. People who work in the city will pay the 1 percent occupation tax, but it will not affect those who make less than a certain amount and for ones who are retired, he said.