Mayor admits he's concerned about city's budget situation

With budget revenue projections earlier this month indicating the city of Athens will have very little money carrying over to next year's budget beginning in January, Athens Mayor Paul Wiehl says that the city has been and will continue to implement cost-reduction measures.

City Auditor Kathy Hecht said earlier this month that she is projecting carryover to be between $200,000 and $300,000. Ideally, she said, carryover should be about $1 million, or 10 percent, of a $10 million budget in the general fund, which it has been the past several years. The minimum that the city would want for carryover, she said, is $600,000 to $700,000.

"As far as I know we'll be very low on carryover by the end of the year," Wiehl confirmed. "But it depends, of course, on a lot of unknowns "“ how much we spend to the edge of the year."

Wiehl said the idea is to tweak the budget and make sure the city doesn't spend any more than it has to for the rest of the year.

"After that, the question arises of how do we create saving somehow, or more revenue," Wiehl said. "That, actually, is something I'd be more worried about for next year. The carryover is going to be low, but I think we'll be able to squeeze through this year. I hope."

Wiehl said that the city budget and revenue projections are always fluctuating.

"The next thing you do is start saying, OK, what services do you take out and what do you eliminate?" he said.

Which services can afford to be cut, he said, is the question that needs to be asked, referring to spending less on roads or less on staffing, and looking at which services are critical and which are not.

Asked whether the city is making adjustments to increase the carryover amount, Wiehl said the city has been doing this all along.

"We've been looking at down-the-road already," Wiehl said, "whether it's eliminating people taking cars home, or changing some of our policies."

Wiehl pointed to the consolidation of the water, sewer and streets departments into one Public Works Department as an example of cost-saving measures undertaken by the city.

"That had some savings," Wiehl said. "But you have the unexpected as well, which is why you want the carryover, for the unexpected."

Other things the city has done to increase revenue, Wiehl said, include charging residents for the city to pick up yard waste.

"This has been a service that had not been costing anybody anything, but had been costing the city something, so we make some choices along the way of whether we're going to charge or not," Wiehl said.

Another city service that may see a cost increase is the city bus system. Wiehl has proposed raising full-fare rates by 50 cents to $1.50 and reduced-fair rates by 25 to 75 cents, as well as all other fares by between 14 and 43 percent.

"It hasn't been done since 2001," Wiehl said. "So as the cost of running the bus system has gone up, the increase in the grant money has not gone up at the same rate, and, therefore, we've been paying a larger portion of our budget to the bus system."

Wiehl said that he is going to hold off until January to implement the rate change.

"We're doing little bits and pieces at a time," Wiehl said. "Whether it will be enough to pull out of the hole, we don't know. At the end of the year we count our pennies and see what happens. I worry about the budget. I've been kind of swamped by the present economy, so it's not like I can do all the nifty things I'd like to do."