Alex Curd
Members of Bucyrus City Council’s finance committee chose not to pass the city’s 2023 budget during their special meeting Friday. Instead, they decided to think about it over the weekend and come back Tuesday.
“Why do you need the weekend?” Mayor Jeff Reser asked them. “What are you looking for that you don’t already know?”
Plans for Friday’s special finance committee and council meetings were announced late on Thursday afternoon, in the latter case just minutes before the city’s legal deadline to provide notification.
The meetings were called because Joyce Schifer, the city’s auditor, had been trying to get council members to address what she forecasts to be a $1 million deficit over the next year. She hoped they could pass the balanced budget before year’s end.
‘There are some repairs that won’t be made’
“The budget was cut drastically,” Schifer warned at the start of Friday’s finance committee meeting.
She had to take about $400,000 away from the street fund for street improvements — the city usually spends more than $1.5 million on such projects, but in 2023 will only have $1.1 million available.
“That means there are some repairs that won’t be made, or maybe it will just be a Band-Aid because we don’t have the money,” Schifer said.
The budget for bridge repair also was severely slashed. The city set aside $241,000 in 2021 and $142,500 in 2022 for such projects, but Friday’s proposed budget only allowed for $10,000.
Swimming pool funding cut in 2023
The city pool at Aumiller Park had its funding eliminated. It only takes about $85,000 to run the pool each year, so the cut did not save as much money as others — but it was the only cut that shut down an entire department.
“To make up the deficit that we were going to have, there was nothing else we could do,” Schifer said during Friday’s meeting.
It was a hard realization for many council members, including Dan Wirebaugh, chair of the city’s finance committee.
“There probably won’t be a swimming pool this year,” he acknowledged.
He asked if it would be possible for the pool to operate on donations, and Schifer said that it could.
“This is a great community and they come together for things,” Wirebaugh said. “Hopefully they can do that again… we’re going to need help.”
‘It’s going to have to pass’
Terry Spiegel thanked Schifer for going through the budget so meticulously, even during her last week on the job.
“She did a great job,” he said. “Looking through everything, it looks pretty good, considering what we’ve got to work with.”
The retiring auditor said it wasn’t easy.
“It’s been a little bit of a struggle,” Schifer said.
She reminded council members that Saturday was her official retirement date, and that she legally would not be allowed to do any work on the budget after midnight. Her hope was that they would pass the budget Friday evening, but agreed she could make any changes over the weekend so that they could retroactively approve it during Tuesday’s meeting.
“It’s going to have to pass, or there will be no payroll next week,” Schifer added.
‘I don’t know what there is to peruse’
Wirebaugh said he wanted to “peruse” the proposed budget over the weekend, to which fellow finance committee members Mark Makeever and Kevin Myers agreed.
Spiegel, however, did not.
“I don’t know what there is to peruse,” he said.
Spiegel, like the mayor, thought it would be wise for the finance committee to pass the legislation along to the full council while there was still time for Schifer to make corrections.
It will take the Republican Central Committee several weeks to replace Schifer, and during that time the city will be without an auditor.
Any changes that council members want made, Spiegel reminded them, cannot be made after midnight Saturday.
The other three stuck together against him.
“I’m not going to vote for something that was just handed to me,” Myers told Spiegel.
Makeever made a motion to schedule another special finance committee meeting for 6:55 p.m. Tuesday so that the budget could be approved ahead of the next regular council meeting, which starts at 7 that evening. Myers seconded the motion.
Spiegel was the only member who remained against waiting to pass the balanced budget.
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