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Show Bountiful City Council hunts for funds in tight buc232 By GARY R. BLODGETT ' BOUNTIFUL - The Bountiful City Council went hunting for $367,000 of needed money to balance bal-ance its 1989-90 general fund budget-but could come up with only $131,000. "I've gone over the budget line-by-line and added income and deducted expenses everywhere I could, but I still can't pull any more than $131,000 from the already-tight already-tight budget," Mr. Hardy told the council. He said be made, seven revisions in the city's anticipated income for next fiscal year and was able to add $90,000. He then made some reductions reduc-tions on eight line items of the expenditures ex-penditures and was able to save $41,000. "That's a net saving of $131,000," he saiL!!which is far short of the $367,000 needed to accomplish ac-complish what we would like for the employees in the way of salary increases, reclassification of personnel per-sonnel jobs, 1 and an improved medical insurance package." These funding problems discussed discuss-ed at length in a council meeting study session last Wednesday are only part of Jhe "deficit" in the pending budget ? And time is running out funds were upped $20,000; am-I am-I bulance ; service fees, ; $8,000; , forfeitures and interest earnings, $10,000 each; and a grant to the r police department not known at the time the budget , was prepared, r $22,000. . ;.LW. U-M ' Reductions in travel and training, subscriptions and supplies U amounted for the majority of the cuts from the proposed expenditures. expen-ditures. ; ,-t . "::y . Mr. Hardy told the council that there are alternatives to proposed incomes and expenditures, but there ; are also certain restraints that die city is going to follow. : j In a separate interview, Mr. Hardy Har-dy said that there are funds that could be transferred from the city-owned city-owned Bountiful Power and Light Company to help offset the general , " fund deficit. . . "But we are not going to make any changes in the contribution that " die power plant makes to the city,"' said Mr.. Hardy. "It's tempting to dip into the power plant fund to help out, but a certain criteria has been set and been in place for the past five years and we have no intention in-tention of changing.". . He explained that the power department contributes to the city's general fund a total of IS percent of retail sales-or $1250 million for this fiscal-year budget An additional addi-tional 5 per cent is allocated to the city's capital improvement fund for next fiscal year, a total of $400,000. "City officials feel that this is a fair share and that the city must remain re-main conservative in its total operation,", opera-tion,", said Mr. Hardy. "So we are . still looking for other means of balancing bal-ancing the new budget." - - Still unresolved are the proposals by the city of the following: o Providing a cost-of-living to all full time employees amounting to about $42,000 for each one percent offered. - Reclassification of 56 full-time jobs-most of them in the police and fire departments-which will require re-quire $108396. : ; Providing an improved medical insurance package of which all but $50 per month premium would be paid by the City, $34,500. ; v The addition of four new personnel-one each in the police, fire, recreation and - administrative departments-totaling $1 18,000 Also added was a commitment to the Davis-Bountiful Arts and Cultural Center for $14,000. T - In addition, $63,000 is needed from the city's enterprise funds to - combine -with - the general fund money to complete the proposed benefit - packages earmarked for employees, Mr. Hardy explained. The council discussed numerous possible solutions and alternatives to the fiscal dilemma, but postponed council action for further discussion. discus-sion. The council will review the budget again tonight and should reach a decision by next Wednes-"-day. ' Mayor Dean S. Stable asked city department heads attending the budget hearing last week what options op-tions they felt would be best for their staff. Opinions varied and the ; council decided to study the proposals pro-posals further. Mr. Hardy said he expected the property tax revenue to be about $ 10,000 : higher than first anticipated. an-ticipated. Also, the Mountain Fuel Supply franchise tax income was. raised $10,000; Class "C" Road |
