Zanesville Begins 2012 Budget Talks

The end of this year is nearing and the City of Zanesville is already beginning to discuss next year’s budget.

Monday night, the City’s Budget Committee met in council chambers to discuss the 2012 budget and as of right now, they project a 47. 5 million dollar budget, almost 8 million less than this year’s at 55 million dollars.

" A big part of why it’s come down is because of the large amount of money that we borrowed to build the new water plant so that’s a one time thing and kind of inflated the 2011 budget so since that is nearing completion, that won’t be in next year’s numbers," said Budget Committee Chairman Stephen Kilpatrick.

Included in next year’s budget may also include some pay freezes for some city employees to help save the city money even further.

"The revenue side we’ve been pretty conservative of not anticipating a lot of additional income tax and I think that that’s where were aiming for on the expense side as well as we negotiate contracts," said Kilpatrick.

Each department in the City Monday night had a chance to speak about their thoughts and concerns over the proposed budget and how it will affect their department. A temporary budget must be in place by the end of December and a final budget must be in place by the end of March 2012.