Bleak Budget for Huntington

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BY SAM TURLEY

THE PARTHENON

As the country suffers through another year of economic hardship, cities across the U.S. are feeling the pain, and Huntington is no exception.

As the recession continues its impact, the city will have to cut funding once again - a trend over recent fiscal years.

In Huntington Mayor Kim Wolfe's proposed budget for the 2012 fiscal year, funding was cut across many of the city's departments, including layoffs of city employees and reduction in allocations across the board.

"With all that we have done and all the cuts that we have made, it has not been enough for us to weather this economic storm," Wolfe said in his 2011 State of the City address. "We must cut more and ask for even more sacrifice from our employees and our citizens."

In each of the past three fiscal years, the city budget has shrunk. In the 2010 fiscal year, the budget was $44.9 million. In the 2011 fiscal year, the approved budget reduced by 2.5 percent to $43.8 million. For the 2012 fiscal year, the budget proposed by Wolfe is $41.8 million, a reduction of 4 percent.

One of the biggest reductions in funding comes for the city's insurance programs. The proposed budget of $8 million is $300,000 less than the 2011 budget.

The proposed budget also included a reduction in floodwall funding, shrinking by $100,000 to $1.4 million.

Another cost-cutting measure in the proposed budget for 2012 is the layoff of eight city employees. However, under the proposed budget, Huntington City Hall will return to a 5-day workweek, but employees whose pay was decreased in a cost-cutting measure in last year's budget will not have their prior salaries restored.

The Cabell-Wayne Animal Shelter lost $100,000 in funding in the budget process. The shelter lost $25,000 in the 2011 fiscal year allocations.

One of the few areas that received an increase in funding is the city's budget for road paving. Allocation for paving is $1 million for the upcoming fiscal year, a 66 percent increase compared to the current fiscal year's allocation of $600,000.

However, one element not considered in the budget is the new municipal occupation tax, which will be implemented July 1. The tax replaces the $3 per week user fee, but the tax was not approved before Wolfe submitted his budget proposal.

Huntington is far from the only city facing budget cuts. Cities across the United States are also cutting funding because of a reduced budget.

"Nearly every public official in the country is being forced to make tough choices and decisions that affect the people they are elective to serve," Wolfe said in his State of the City address.

Utica, New York - a city with a statistically similar population size and demographic to Huntington - had to take $1.9 million from their rainy day fund in order to balance their 2012 fiscal year budget, according to the Utica Observer-Dispatch.

Larger cities are also cutting their budgets. San Diego is reviewing ways to combat a projected budget deficit of $56.7 million in the upcoming fiscal year, according to KGTV San Diego.

Although Huntington, like many other cities, is still suffering from the recession, MSNBC.com's Adversity Index shows hope for the city. According to the index, Huntington is beginning to enter an economic recovery mode, as is the state as a whole.

Police and Fire Sidebar

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BY SAM TURLEY

THE PARTHENON

Many city departments will face budget cuts in the 2012 fiscal year, and for Huntington's police and fire departments, cuts are nothing new.

At a Huntington City Council meeting on March 10, council members looked at the budgets of both departments and trimmed money to reallocate to paving funds. The council approved taking $100,000 from the police department and $90,000 from the fire department.

In the 2010 fiscal year, the Huntington Police Department received $11.6 million in funding. In the 2011 fiscal year, they received $11 million. For the upcoming 2012 fiscal year, the proposed allocation is 10.9 million.

The Huntington Fire Department has also had their budget reduced in the three most recent fiscal years. In the 2010 fiscal year, the budgeted amount for the fire department was $10.5 million. In the 2011 fiscal year, the adopted budget allocated $10.2 million. In the budget proposed for the 2012 fiscal year, the proposed amount is $10.3 million, a slight increase from the prior year. However, four vacant positions in the Huntington Fire Department will remain unfilled, a measure that is expected to save the department $65,000.

Ordinance and Rules Committee Meeting

The Charleston Ordinance and Rules Committee met tonight to discuss a bill for an increase in rental rates for the Charleston Civic Center and Charleston Municipal Auditorium.

A representative from the civic center said an increase was necessary due to the economic difficulties and an increase in operation costs, including a rate hike from AEP. He also said the charges were still in line with comparable cities, so he didn't expect the civic center or auditorium to lose business because of the expense of renting either facility.

The representative said the biggest cost comes from air conditioning. A committee member asked why the costs were so high, and the representative responded that it was because the A/C units were installed in 1980 and were inefficient from an energy standpoint, but were too expensive to replace at the time.

The committee voted to pass the bill unanimously. The bill will next be taken up by the finance committee.

Rules and Ordinance Meeting

I will be attending the rules and ordinance meeting tomorrow in Charleston.

I am not sure what the committee does, but their title sounds important which makes me curious about what will be discussed.

Huntington City Council Meeting

In tonight's meeting, the Huntington City Council voted to approve four surveillance cameras by the Huntington Police Department. Each council member voted in favor of an ordinance to expand the number of cameras the department has. One resident in attendance criticized the ordinance. He said he did not think the police department needed to spy on the city's residents, but that it what they would do with the cameras. He then when on a diatribe about what was wrong with the city, and at one point called Councilman Jim Ritter "a liar and a thief." Ritter became visibly angry and responded, "Do you want to take this outside, son?" The chairman told them both they needed to settle down immediately and told the resident there was nothing left for him to say.

At the beginning of the meeting, Tom McCallister, a Huntington resident, addressed the council about a sanitation board meeting he said he was supposed to be informed about. He said he stood in front of council at a previous meeting and asked about the sanitation board meeting, only to later find out that it had met without him knowing about it. The chairman said he agreed, and added that he (the chairman) "dropped the ball" by not letting McCallister know.

McCallister also criticized Mayor Kim Wolfe for not attending the meeting. He said the mayor has an obligation to be there. McCallister said the mayor has missed multiple city council meetings despite the fact the city charter says the mayor is supposed to be at all meetings. I thought this was interesting, and I would like to know exactly how many meetings the mayor has missed and exactly what the city charter says about mayoral attendance at meetings. I may look into it independently when I have the time, but if I were a reporter with the City Hall, Mayor's Office or a similar beat, I would research it as a possible investigative story.

Huntington City Council

I will be attending tomorrow evening's Huntington City Council meeting at 7:30 p.m. The agenda is available here: http://www.cityofhuntington.com/pages/aa-councilagenda.html.

From reading the agenda, I don't expect any heated debate or long discussions. Most of the issues on the agenda appear to be simple and to the point.

Belle Town Council Meeting

I attended the Belle Town Council meeting this evening, where they discussed the issue of a new mayor. Larry Conley was the town's mayor, but he died in February, leaving more than three years left in his term. Last week, the council voted to appoint Kim Holmes, the town's recorder, as mayor for the remainder of the term. Holmes is serving as interim mayor, as in Belle, the recorder serves as lieutenant mayor.

However, the council voted in a closed meeting, and the agenda of the meeting was not posted. This angered many residents, and it was also a violation of West Virginia State Code.

So, tonight's open meeting was a "do-over," the town's attorney said. He guided the meeting and explained to the residents in attendance. The council heard comments from multiple residents who wanted an election for mayor to be held as soon as possible. Kim Holmes said that she no longer wanted the appointment of mayor because of the stress of trying to act as mayor for the next three years while also working full-time.

The council originally voted to appoint another councilperson as mayor, which angered many of the residents at the meeting. Then, one of the councilmen withdrew his vote and said he thought an election would be best. The councilman who made the motion for an appointment withdrew his motion, and a councilwoman motioned for an election. The council then voted for an election. The meeting was adjourned after the attorney explained that election dates and other matters would be settled at the next town council meeting in three weeks.

It was an interesting and emotional meeting (the councilman who withdrew his vote started crying as he talked about wanting to do what was best for his town), and it also tied into conversations we've had in class about the necessity for open meetings. About 40 of Belle's 1,100 residents showed up to the meeting, and nearly every one of them said they had signed a petition for an election because it was the democratic approach. It was great to see a small town care so much about its government.