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Mayor sends balanced-budget plan to council
By DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
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Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams
The administration will present a balanced general fund to city council today for approval.
It was less than a week ago that city administrators said Youngstown needed to close a projected $2 million gap between anticipated revenue and expenditures in this year’s general fund.
Mayor Jay Williams said Tuesday that he expects about five to 10 workers to stop working for the city this year either through retirement or resignation. The reduced number of employees would save the city about $500,000 this year, he said.
As Williams previously said, the recommended budget from the administration does not include layoffs. The city has about 700 employees.
Council will meet at 4 p.m. today to approve the budget.
The remaining $1.5 million of the gap would be made up largely through additional tax revenue and the sale and lease of city assets, Williams said.
Williams declined to discuss specific assets except to say some of the parcels could be sold or leased to companies for cellular telephone and other communication towers, and property in city-owned business parks could be sold or leased to businesses interested in locating there.
As for declining to give specifics, Williams said, “If the city makes it known it is interested in selling an asset, the price would go down.”
The mayor added that companies with long-term leases at city-owned locations could be asked to pay a lump sum now that would be less expensive to the business than the amount they pay over time.
Councilman Jamael Tito Brown, D-3rd, chairman of the legislative body’s finance committee, specifically mentioned the AT&T service and maintenance center on a 20-acre parcel owned by the city off Salt Springs Road near Meridian Road.
The city approved a five-year lease renewal with a five-year option in 2008 to keep the company and its 200 employees there. That deal called for AT&T to pay $411,400 in the contract’s first year, increasing to $491,661 by the 10th year with the company paying $4.5 million to the city over 10 years.
Brown also mentioned 20 Federal Place, the former Phar Mor Centre, purchased by the city in 2004 for about $825,000, to save it from being closed. The facility is about 70 percent occupied.
“I’d rather sell it than keep it and have the city in debt,” Brown said. “We should take a look at how much it’s worth.”
The city’s finance department estimates Youngstown will receive $41.8 million in tax collections in 2010 between the 2.75 income tax it imposes on those who work or live in the city and the 2.75 percent profit tax paid by companies.
That’s the same amount it collected in 2009, which is $6.1 million less than it had expected last year.
“We can reasonably expect a bit more revenue that will allow us to help balance the budget,” Williams said.
Through the first two months of 2010, tax revenue is in line with what was projected.