Marietta budget drafted

By Sam Shawver, Special to the News


MARIETTA — Salaries and benefits will eat up 76 percent of Marietta’s projected $8.7 million general fund in 2008, assistant city safety service director Bill Dauber said during a review of the municipal budget fund on Wednesday.

“That leaves us with 24 percent for operating costs to run the city,” he told members of Marietta’s City Council finance committee.

“Our whole spending will be up 6 percent over last year, but I don’t think this is a bad budget,” Dauber added.

Councilman Tom Vukovic, D-4th Ward, chairman of the finance committee, agreed.

“I think it’s a pretty good budget; there’s not a lot of fluff here,” he said.

Projected expenditures for the 2008 general fund total $9.8 million, but will be offset by an expected carryover from 2007 of $1.3 million.

Among the high ticket items in the 2008 general fund were costs related to the police and fire departments.

The police department is expected to draw down $2.95 million from the general fund in 2008, about $25,000 more than in 2007. Fire department expenses are estimated to use $1.98 million from the 2008 general fund, compared to $1.92 million in 2007. Vukovic noted that the fire department expense included $1.17 million for salaries, an increase of about $77,000 over the 2007 figure, due to raises negotiated by the firefighters union and finalized last month.

Negotiations for a new firefighters contract will reopen again this year.

Total estimated general fund costs for fire and police in 2008 will be $5 million. In 2007 the total was $4.9 million.

Costs related to operation of the lands, buildings and parks department are expected to increase from $577,690 to $654,002. Vukovic said part of the 2008 increase was $20,000 for mowing contracts that had not been included for the last two years due to budget constraints. Safety service director Dave Sands explained that the city contracted mowing services until two years ago when the revenues became so tight that cutbacks were necessary to help balance the budget.

At that time, the city began doing the mowing in-house, drawing employees and equipment from various departments to help with the mowing.

“Our guys did a great job, but there’s no way in the spring and early summer that our crews can keep up with the work,” Sands said. “A new contract program would help, especially in the spring.”

Vukovic recommended that the $20,000 requested for mowing contracts be set aside as contingency money in the lands, buildings and parks fund until the administration could present a focused plan for a contract program.

The city engineering department’s salaries and wages line item is projected to increase from $131,134 in 2007 to $168,505 from the 2008 general fund budget.

“But that includes money to hire another co-op student to help out in engineering, and Scott (Mincks, the former co-op student) is going to full time,” Vukovic said.

He noted that the information systems department allocation had also increased to $115,654 for the 2008 general fund budget, up from $64,269 in 2007.

“That’s a large gap, but we’ve hired a second person in that department,” Vukovic said.

Total projected revenue from all city funds, including the general fund, is $22.4 million for 2008, down about $35,000 from 2007 revenues.

Councilman Andy Thompson, R-At large, will take over as chairman of the finance committee in January.

“We’ll see as the new year progresses if any new proposals come up, but I feel pretty good about this budget,” he said.

The 2008 budget ordinance will be presented for the newly-elected council’s approval on Jan. 2.