Mayor Butch Berry told city council on Monday he has been grappling with slashing the budget due to the decline of sales tax revenue. The meeting was held without press or public, who are expected to watch live video feeds that were “80 percent unintelligible” according to Planning Chair LauraJo Smole.
“We have been struggling… bare bones budget,” Berry said while discussing and receiving council approval for a 35 percent budget cut as of March 31, 2020. That is almost $1.5 million dollars of lost revenue due to the pandemic.
The end of May brought a bit more financial information indicating that sales tax woes have arrived. According to the April 2020 financial summary, the city’s General Fund was short by $223,972 showing a 9.8 percent drop from the expected year-to-date earnings. Exactly how the mayor plans to execute the 35 percent cut from the original $4.2 million budget was discussed, but not clear.
Berry said that how he updated the budget was the best he and Finance Director Lonnie Clark could do, but exact changes have not been provided to the public. It was indicated that the cuts were not consistent across the departments as some areas are deemed more essential than others.
For example, Police and Fire were supported by alderman Mickey Schneider, who argued that Police and Fire budgets “should never ever be touched… they save our lives. You don’t touch those guys.”
Additionally, the Animal Control Officer, whose budget is overseen by the Police Chief, is seen as essential by Schneider. She said it is imperative that the city maintain the original ACO budget to ensure that the city is able to respond to animal emergencies. She said she believes some citizens will shoot a loose animal if there is no public service available.
Berry assured Schneider that the Animal Control Officer would be maintained but could not make many other assurances to Police and Fire budgets. Amid the discussion, alderman Harry Meyer interjected, “I’m disappointed in our police department.”
Meyer contended that the ESPD budget was and has been disproportionate to the size of the city, indicating a scale back would be welcome. Historically, Meyer has pushed the mayor to provide better wages for city workers.
After approval of budget cuts, alderman Terry McClung requested that regular city employee salaries be cut by 6 percent across the board. This came as a surprise as it was a consideration, not an approved item on the evening’s agenda. Discussion brought about questions of the salaries paid elected officials in addition to regular employees.
“Eliminating council’s salary would be an illegal act,” City Attorney Tim Weaver said.
With the elected officials’ salaries being unaffected, McClung’s request was isolated to regular city employees. With a vote of 4 to 2, Schneider and alderman Susan Harman opposed, McClung’s motion to lower salaries by 6 percent was approved.
McClung commented at the end of the meeting, “We are having problems with the budget, and the best way to remedy the budget problem is to bring in more revenue.”
The next meeting is scheduled for June 8 at 6 p.m. in the Auditorium.
Not knowing how the mayor and finance director decided to make the 35 percent cut, and before the 6 percent salary cut across the board, here is a simple chart showing how the salaries were divvied out among the departments before the pandemic:
- Mayor’s salaries $216,754 (of which $18,000 is the mayor’s salary)
- Cemetery wages $30,000
- Finance Dept. salaries $186,308
- Police Dept salaries $783,105 (plus $27,973 overtime)
- Municipal Court salaries $61,680
- Fire & EMS salaries $650,970 (plus $110,382 overtime)
- Building Dept salaries $50,775
- City Clerk salaries $30,500
- Street salaries $204,785 (plus $7,000 overtime)
- Water dept salaries $73,608 (plus $5,000 overtime)
- Wastewater dept salaries $141,964 (plus $3,000 overtime)
- Transit admin/ops/other salaries $540,259 (plus $10,000 overtime)
This is absolutely ridiculous , these employees are Eureka Springs Hero’s They put their lives on the line everyday they go to work . I’m ashamed…. at a time that groceries and utilities are sky high . What would are town be without them .