Ann Arbor City Budget: Cuts Begin Now
Ann Arbor city administrator Roger Fraser talks with city councilmembers about upcoming budget decisions. That possibility includes layoff notices to 14 firefighters to be sent as soon as the week of Dec. 7. Members of the International Association of Firefighters Local 693 stand in the background. (Photos by the writer.)
Unless he receives other direction from the Ann Arbor city council at its Dec. 7 meeting, city administrator Roger Fraser told councilmembers at their Saturday budget retreat that he’ll begin implementing a plan to trim around $3 million out of the current fiscal year budget.
The moves are necessary to balance the FY 2010 budget, which ends June 30, 2010.
Some of that trimming is a matter of accounting for one-time savings – $500,000 had been budgeted for the Pfizer tax refund, but was settled last year so won’t be on the books for FY 2010. Other trimming is a matter of accepting current situations and committing to them going forward, for recurring savings – for example, vacancies from excess reductions of police through the early-out retirement incentive would not be filled.
But some of the trimming would entail cutting positions currently filled – 14 firefighter positions, which account for around $400,000 of the $3 million to be saved in FY 2010. The move to eliminate firefighter jobs had been part of the FY 2011 plan, but would be implemented six months earlier – now.
For FY 2011, the picture gets even worse, with the city facing a $5.4 million shortfall. And looking ahead one year after that, city council will be faced with constructing a budget for FY 2012 that is 30% smaller than the one they approved for FY 2009. [Full Story]