Batavia looks at ways to plug $1 million deficit

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BATAVIA – City officials haven’t made a decision on whether to start charging for leaf pickup to help plug a projected $1 million deficit in the city’s general fund.

But officials continue to weigh the option.

“The costs of the program are going to be a real drain on us,” Batavia Mayor Jeff Schielke said after Tuesday’s Government Services committee meeting, where aldermen discussed the deficit. “These are the types of things the City Council will have to actively discuss.”

Geneva and St. Charles already charge for brush and leaf pickup, Schielke said.

The proposed 2010 budget will be posted on the city’s Web page, www.cityofbatavia.net, starting today. A public hearing on the budget  is set for 7:30 p.m. Nov. 16 at the Batavia Government Center, 100 N. Island Ave.

Officials also are looking at the possibility of dipping into the city’s reserves to cover the deficit. The city is expected to have $8.4 million in reserves at the end of 2009, City Administrator Bill McGrath said.

If the reserves were used to plug the deficit, the city would still have 118 days in operating reserves left, McGrath said. Reserves are built up to cover any sort of catastrophe.

“We could use the reserves to fund the deficit and still have healthy reserves,” McGrath said. “The general notion is that you should have approximately 60 days of operating reserves. We’ve had 120 days in the past several years.”

The general fund is used for the day-to-day operations of the city, which are financed from property taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes, fees and other general revenues.

According to city officials, sales tax revenues are down $900,00 from last year.

McGrath said the city has already implemented a number of cost-saving moves, which include laying off seven employees, reducing the salaries of the highest paid employees by 4.5 percent and negotiating wage freezes with a few unions.

Even after those efforts, the general fund is still showing a deficit of $1 million in the general fund.

McGrath said the city is currently working with the city’s fire, street and electric employees on cost-saving moves, including that paid on-call firefighters would see a 1 1⁄2 percent decrease in their hourly rate.

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