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Niles recovery plan finally progresses
By Jordan Cohen
NILES
What a difference 24 hours makes.
Just one day after council members strongly criticized the mayor’s latest fiscal emergency recovery plan and worried for the city’s future, Mayor Thomas Scarnecchia emerged Thursday with a revised proposal that appears to address their concerns.
What followed was something not seen in council chambers for most of this year: optimism.
“I’m much more comfortable than I was 24 hours ago,” said Councilman Barry Steffey, D-4th, finance chairman. “It’s a plan we can get behind.”
“I feel confident we should be able to make this work,” said Auditor Giovanne Merlo.
The mayor said there will be no layoffs. Instead, he plans to eliminate jobs through attrition.
Council had objected to the mayor’s submission last Friday because it did not include capital outlays for 2017. The mayor discussed those privately with the auditor and council President Robert Marino on Thursday afternoon before presenting them to council.
The state’s fiscal supervisors must accept the plan. If they accept, council is expected to have a special meeting next week to vote. Approval by all sides is likely to eliminate the threat of a mandatory 15 percent reduction in city expenditures, which would have resulted in layoffs.
The new proposal contains outlays totaling nearly $600,000 over five years for the installation of 5,000 water meters that have remained in boxes for several years because there is no money to pay for installation. Safety Service Director James DePasquale said installation will be outsourced and covered by the water department enterprise fund, which generates its own revenue. The new meters are expected to generate more revenue.
“I hope we can recoup some of this money and be done with it once and for all,” Scarnecchia said.
Another major issue is the city’s decaying waterline infrastructure, which has had more than 100 breaks this year. The mayor’s plan projects $50,000 to cover the cost of an engineering study to determine where repairs are most needed.
“We can’t quantify our infrastructure until the analysis is done,” Merlo said, adding that the water fund, which was more than $1 million in the red, “should be out of the negative next year.”
Scarnecchia also has included the implementation of an asset management study, the lack of which was criticized in the state audits of 2014 and 2015 and by council. “It’s been at least 30 years since our last inventory,” DePasquale said, meaning the city has no idea of the value of all of its assets.
Merlo, who earlier estimated the cost of the study between $200,000 and $500,000, said the analysis will be parceled out over the years beginning with the light department and then other utilities.
“This will make us more accountable,” Scarnecchia said.
Merlo reminded council that there will be no additional revenue coming in and that there will be no carryover into the general fund for next year, so is there adequate funding given the city’s fiscal emergency?
“That’s what we’re hoping for,” the mayor said.
“The only problem is there are expenses we’re going to have to cover, and I’m interested to see how we’re going to supplement this,” said Steve Mientkiewicz, D-2nd. “I assume there will be significant cuts to the general fund.”
“I’m very happy with it,” said Linda Marchese, D-3rd. “I think we will be able to make the cuts through attrition because a lot of people are planning to retire.”