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Show JtyOOO 'Out Of Whack' iOffieiais Struggle To Balance Budget ,!GaRYR. BLODGETT ' STERVILLE - City . J y teennUd8Ct that '' "0Ut 0f :"j2lff-82 BUDGET, 3san'Kac!ua 63,968 4,1 schedule glnal bud8et co '(ktnmlesLexPenditures & 'nadfc0nth Penod. 0 Wiihe city must )m off and pavment " lny i bout 100 acres of meet other deficits. Pment is not made, or delayed past the April 1 due date, Centerville could be as much as $264,000 in the red at the close of the fiscal year on June 30, it was explained. As a result, the council unanimously authorized the mayor to work with a local loaning institution (Zions First National Bank) to obtain a tax anticipation note to defray the expenses until the new fiscal year begins July 1. MAYOR NEIL Blackburn told the council that approximately approxi-mately $350,000 will be needed to offset expenses this fiscal year including the $200,000 payment expected from the sale of property. "We have to take into account that something could happen and the payment might be late, or even defaulted." said the mayor. "It's better to borrow this amount and then pay it off a couple of months later than to need the money and not have it available." COUNCILMAN Kenneth Holman emphasized that the city's shortfall is only temporary tempor-ary and should be "cleared up" early in the 1982-83 fiscal year. "These deficits were created cre-ated by a previous council and should not be blamed on the existing council," he said. "Commitments to the city's special improvement district, which was created about 2": years ago, is the primary reason for the deficit." COUNCIL MEMBERS discussed dis-cussed the problem at length and decided to "tighten up" the existing budget by not replacing re-placing at least for the time being a city administrator to succeed Kenner Killpack who retired last Dec. 31. The council also rejected a request for purchase of a new police car until next fiscal year. There will also be substantial sub-stantial cutbacks in other de-partments, de-partments, councilmen agreed. MAYOR Blackbnrn, who heads the city's finance committee, com-mittee, told the council that they (mayor and fie council-men) council-men) are personally liable for any overspending by the city and cautioned them to "operate "oper-ate a tight '.hip' regarding finances. fi-nances. The mayor outlined four options op-tions the council has for creating creat-ing a balanced budget. The options op-tions included: 1. DROP THE warrant Kmds for payment of the city's 5pecial improvement district. 2. Sell tax anticipation notes to raie necessary funds and pay off the bonds as revenues become available. This proposal prop-osal also included "rolling back" some of the payment on the interim bonds until next fiscal fis-cal year (after July 1 ). 3. ATTEMPT to sell city-owned city-owned property which includes in-cludes six residential lots. Uo acres of property along the access ac-cess road, and other properties. prop-erties. 4. Hold a public election to approve the borrowing of money to pay off existing debts. CITY ATTORNEY Keith Stable advised the council to take care of their bonding obli-gations obli-gations and to borrow, if necessary, through tax anticipation anti-cipation notes the necessary money to pay debts. |