GIRARD Auditor hopes for balance

Panel members pointed out the proposed actions are temporary solutions.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
GIRARD -- The city could end the year with a balanced budget if the administration and council carry out their plans, the city's fiscal officer says.
"It looks like a break-even year," Nita R. Hendryx, the state-appointed auditor overseeing city finances told the Girard Financial Planning and Supervision Commission on Tuesday.
The commission was appointed to oversee city finances after the city was placed in fiscal emergency.
If nothing is done, she told the commission, the city's general fund will end the year $476,000 in the red.
Transfer to general fund
Hendryx said the city must transfer $107,000 in cable television franchise fees from a capital improvements funds to the general fund. "We desperately need those dollars," she said.
Also, council will consider at a special meeting Monday a $150,000 transfer to the general fund from a bond retirement fund that was overfunded for the U.S. Route 422 utilities project.
The city also plans to pay $30,000 needed for the senior citizens bus driver through a grant the city has received.
In addition, city auditor Sam Zirafi said the city will defer payment of $50,000 to the Public Employees Retirement System from 2004 through 2006.
This leaves the administration to cut costs by $105,000, or 3 percent of the general fund, through the end of the year.
The total of all the proposed cuts will be $443,000.
Commission member Robert Delisio said the actions will be only a temporary solution.
Medical costs
Zirafi said employee medical costs continue to hurt the self-insured community. Because of the high number of claims, he noted, no insurance carrier wants the city's health coverage.
He said $900,000 was budgeted this year to pay health claims, or $10,000 per employee. This is an increase of about $100,000 over the what was allocated in 2002.
Lawmakers are also considering putting a five-year 3.5-mill levy on the November ballot that would generate about $420,000 annually.
Capital improvements
Phil Cretella Jr., president of the International Association of Firefighters Local 1220, said the issue should not be a safety-service levy, but rather one for capital improvements.
Cretella said he was misunderstood that he would publicly oppose a safety-service levy.
He said he would oppose any publicity that the police or firefighters caused the debt, because it was capital expenses that caused the city to overspend.
yovich@vindy.com