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Hubbard mayor touts stable finances, improvement projects
By Sarah Lehr
HUBBARD
Mayor John Darko touted the city government’s accomplishments in 2015 during his annual “State of the City” address this week.
Specifically, Darko thanked Treasurer Marsha Ruha and Auditor Michael Villano for ensuring a “strong financial house.”
Ruha presented the city’s year-end financial report, which details a $10,543,916 total balance and a $794,430 general-fund balance at the close of 2015.
Though all funds ended 2015 in the black, Ruha noted the water fund saw a 2.49 percent decrease and the sewer fund saw a 1.4 percent decrease, as compared to 2014.
“Safe spending should be a thing we look at [in 2016],” Ruha said of the slight decreases.
Total cash revenues grew 18.53 percent to $20,435,493 in 2015 and expenditures grew 17.36 percent to $18,598,429.
Additionally, the mayor touted improvement projects including a $2.1 million upgrade to the water treatment plant and the paving of Hubbard’s two main thoroughfares in 2015. The paving of North Main Street and West Liberty Street cost about $1.5 million. The city footed about $260,000 of that cost. State funding covered the rest.
In other business, council passed legislation authorizing the board of control to advertise for bids of chemicals for the water treatment plant this year.