Niles financial commission approves recovery plan

NILES — Despite emotional pleas from city employees, the Financial Planning and Supervision Commission approved the amended five-year recovery plan designed to get the city out of fiscal emergency.

The vote was not unanimous. John Davis, commission member, who criticized some of the plan’s provisions throughout today’s meeting, cast the lone dissenting vote.

Despite approval, the package may face yet another revision because Mayor-elect Thomas Scarnecchia told the surprised commission he may change the sections he opposes after he takes office Jan. 1.

“We’re going to revisit all of this,” Scarnecchia said. “We don’t want to lose the income-tax department or the [police] dispatchers. We don’t want to lose anyone.”

Scarnecchia was referring to the plan’s provisions to outsource tax collections to the Regional Income Tax Agency eliminating the income-tax department, and turning over dispatching services from the police department to Trumbull County. The plan estimates a total savings of $136,000 in 2016 for eliminating both.

For the complete story, read Tuesday's Vindicator and Vindy.com