COLUMBIANA CO. E. Palestine looks to balance budget

The sewer budget was cut $200,000 and still has a $50,000 deficit.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
EAST PALESTINE -- City officials are faced with the challenge of balancing the city's 2005 budget by December.
Finance Director Connie Robinson said the budget sits with the general fund at $1,784,802, and anticipated expenditures from the general fund are $1,798,802.
Most other funds also have deficit balances, but city officials have a few months to consider financial decisions to balance the budget, she said. The city must have a balanced budget when final appropriations are made in December, Robinson explained.
She said the expenditures for the sewer department are $50,000 over budget; street lighting, $19,000 over budget, water $3,200 over budget and the street and cemetery expenditures each $1,000 over budget.
She said she has already trimmed budgets for expenditures severely from the "wish list" budgets given to her by department heads. She cut $200,000 from the sewer department, $80,000 from the water department, $29,000 from parks and $16,000 from the street department.
Revenue lost
Robinson said the city has lost an average of about $200,000 per year in income tax revenue the past few years due to the closing of manufacturing plants.
To help with budget shortfalls in recent years, city officials have borrowed from the city's electric trust fund, and city employees represented by the Teamsters and Fraternal Order of Police agreed to wage freezes.
Rich Pillsbury, who was a part-time patrolman and the city's service director, took a full-time position as a police patrolman. City Manager Gary Clark took over the service director's duties, and the position of service director was abolished.