Fort Wayne’s 2010 budget keeps services intact despite shrinking revenue, but Mayor Tom Henry said it also gives his administration time to plan for even tougher decisions in the future.
The city’s $177.9 million spending plan uses some of the city’s rainy day money and pension cash to achieve balance, a strategy that won’t be sustainable in future years, Controller Pat Roller said.
It gets the city through 2010 and gives the city time to seek other sources of revenue and lobby the state for changes that would help, Henry said.
“What we’re doing is buying time,” Henry said.
As other cities face layoffs or large tax increases, Henry said Fort Wayne is able to maintain services. The budget calls for a 3.45 percent property tax rate increase. This would mean about a $12 annual increase for the owner of a $100,000 house, Roller said.
Henry noted he has just been appointed to lead a new lobbying coalition of Indiana’s larger cities to ensure legislators are aware of the needs of the state’s urban areas. The mayor did not elaborate on the types of changes the city would be seeking from the legislature.
The city is using a quarter of its $4 million in pension reserve to pay for retirees’ health costs next year, the first year that money could be used for those expenses.
Roller also budgeted $900,000 from the city’s $4 million rainy day account to balance the budget, although she said that money would be needed only if property tax caps hit city revenue as hard as predicted.
Henry said it is critical to maintain some money in reserve to pay for emergencies, such as last December’s ice storm.
The budget also calls for a 1.5 percent salary increase for city employees, who did not get raises this year. Council President Tom Smith, R-1st, said he believes the raises are safe, but that doesn’t mean every position is safe. The council previously approved a contract with the firefighters’ union that included 1.5 percent pay increases.
Roller is expected to present the budget to the council this evening with departmental budget reviews beginning in October.
