New Castle’s elected officials recently received some bad financial news from the state.
City clerk-treasurer Christy York told city council members Tuesday that the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF) has cut the city’s proposed budget for 2017 by almost $3.8 million. The cuts are from the city’s General Fund ($3.45 million), Aviation Fund ($55,441), Transportation Fund ($107,758) and Cumulative Community Development Fund ($165,617).
York said the reductions resulted from Indiana’s property tax cap and circuit breaker measures.
According to York, the General Fund pays for expenses relating to the operation of police, fire, EMS, parks, cemetery, city pool, treasurer’s office and mayor’s office. The Aviation Fund pays for the city’s share of the costs associated with operated the local airport. The Transportation Fund pays the bills for the city’s bus service. The CCD Fund covers city emergencies, the bond used to construct Garner Street, and other expenses that fall under the community development umbrella.
York said that while she anticipated the DLGF would make cuts, she was surprised by some of the totals involved.
“It’s hard to continue to run a city when the property tax caps and circuit breaker have pretty much capped us on income. We get no other income unless we start charging for services,” York said, noting other Indiana municipalities and counties also are facing the same financial challenges.
“There will be more spending reductions made to the General Fund just to keep us in the black,” she added. “Mayor York has managed during his two terms to keep us in the black as best he can. Red alert spending is not an unfamiliar term within city departments, he uses that term a lot, and it means that spending is limited to only what is necessary to keep the department functioning.”
The clerk-treasurer said there is no appeals process for the DLGF’s decisions with respect to the city’s proposed budget and that the mayor and various department heads will have no choice but to make spending cuts in the four budget areas involved.
At Tuesday’s meeting, she asked the council to authorize the reductions in the impacted budgets to meet the DLGF’s numbers and the council voted to do so.
Attempts to contact Mayor York for comment on this story were unsuccessful.
The council also discussed continuation of the ongoing effort to separate stormwater and sewer lines and how to pay for the work involved. More on that will be highlighted in an upcoming edition of The Courier-Times.
