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Canfield officials narrow down the '14 budget
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
City officials went through several funding requests and ended with a clear budget to be voted on during Wednesday’s council meeting.
City Manager Joe Warino led the conversation Monday night as he and lawmakers walked through different departments requesting funds from the city’s general fund. At the start of the meeting, requests from the general fund were for more than $215,000 with only $192,872 available.
Lawmakers agreed the general-fund amount to be allocated for various departments would be $95,560. They wanted to reserve some money for emergencies.
“You like to have at least a minimum of $100,000 reserved [if] just something catastrophic happened,” Warino said.
Warino and council members said the police department eats up the major part of the general-fund budget. Police Chief Chuck Colucci was at the meeting requesting funds for new cruisers, radios and ballistic shields, specifically used in entering a school in a lockdown during a shooting, among other items.
Colucci worked with council and accepted half of what he had been asking for, receiving about $50,000, and telling lawmakers he would continue to look for grants to supplement department funding. He said police have been able to use seized drug money to make improvements to the department instead of asking for more city funding. Colucci added he is looking at trading in a handful of forfeited cars to replace one of their unmarked vehicles.
City officials talked about the water department throughout the meeting, which has been moving funds around at the end of the year to make up for a deficit over the last few years.
That deficit is from the city deciding not to pass on rising costs from the city of Youngstown, their water supplier. Youngstown gets its water from the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District. Officials agreed a water-rate increase is something that will be revisited at a future council meeting.