Budget talks continue for the city of Zanesville with the first meeting of a newly-appointed budget committee.
Tonight the committee addressed the charge of the group as they work through sorting the 2010 budget.
Councilman David Tarbert is heading the committee and says it has two main points.
"One, what do we do to prepare and finalize a 2010 budget," he said. "The $2.6 million deficit has been cut down some, but there is still a deficit. What can we do to...
Muskingum County Commissioners are crunching numbers trying to deal with an almost $2 million drop in revenue from last year.
The 2010 county budget is $30.2 million, down from the $32 million budget of 2009.
Commissioner Brian Hill said the loss is caused by many factors including lower revenue from county departments, sales tax and the state.
"The biggest factor is actually lower interest income and then we had a local government fund that was also reduced...
The Muskingum County Commissioners are going through their annual budget.
The commissioners spoke with several department heads to go over expenditures from 2009 and hear budget requests for 2010. Commissioner Brian Hill says the county is in a good place with its budget.
"Well we just asked everybody last year to be very frugal and this is the first time in several years expenditures have been less than they were in 2008, so all departments cut back and spent less...
Other elected officials met with commissioners today to discuss the 2010 budget for their departments.
County Recorder Karen Vincent says her department spent $258,000 last year. In 2010, she's requesting an $8,000 increase. Vincent said her employees have not been given a raise in two years and the Recorder's Office revenue is increasing.
"In 2009 we were up about 40,000 dollars, back in 2004 we had a really good year, but since then the revenues have been...
City Council is taking steps to finalize its 2010 budget.
At tonight's meeting an ordinance was introduced that would give authorization to create a furlough system for city employees. However the ordinance does not authorize furloughs, that is a decision made by Mayor Zwelling.
The ordinance moved to a second reading.
A hearing is scheduled for January 25 to discuss the budget and potential problems and solutions.
"As expected, I heard from all three unions...
Also, meeting with Muskingum County Commissioners Monday was Prosecutor Mike Haddox.
Commissioner John Bates says the Prosecutor's Office was one of the county agencies that cut back last year, when others did not.
"We asked most departments to freeze the salaries and the wages and not spend anymore than they had to, so they did turn some money back in at the end of the year and we're very glad of that and there was some that went ahead and gave their employees raises,...
The cold weather and the high cost of gasoline is causing budget issues for the Muskingum County Engineer's office. Engineer Doug Davis spoke with Muskingum County Commissioners about his department's budget.
"So we were here to talk about budget with the Commissioners and we use that opportunity to look at trends where we think we're going to be in the future for 2010, 2011, and 2012. So we're now budgeting out that far ahead to look at capital improvements. So it's an idea and...
Today the Muskingum County Commissioners are reviewing all the departments 2010 budget requests.
And as expected many departments heads had to make more cut-backs. Muskingum County Auditor Anita Adams says they did the best they could to trim costs.
"We have been experiencing reduced revenues and in light of that we are asked as each department our office had to look at our requests to see if there were any voluntary cuts that we make and to hopefully being the budget in...
Zanesville's Sanitation Department will no longer be affected by the city's budget crunch.
City Council passed an ordinance Monday that will increase sanitation rates.
Public Service Director, Mike Sims, says he understands residents won't be happy about paying more but this change will help them out in the long-run.
"In this case, they will see the benefits of that simply because it will enable the division to become self-funded or self-sufficient, " says Sims....
The City of Zanesville's big budget problems were threatening to end one city department's existence, but now it looks like that won't be happening thanks to an amendment in the City of Zanesville's 2010 temporary budget.
At last night's city council meeting Mayor Zwelling proposed pulling money from the fire department's salaries and operations budget to fund the city's building and maintenance department for another three months.
"I was proud of the administration for...
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