The proposed 2017 Toledo budget again will leave nothing for residential street repaving, require more capital improvement money to pay for daily operations, and earmark more funds for salaries.
The $257.6 million general-fund spending plan is austere but balanced, Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson said Tuesday.
The increase of capital improvement money for general-fund expenses “was based on our income tax prediction and contractual obligations that kick in,” Mayor Hicks-Hudson said.
Those contractual obligations will cost Toledo taxpayers at least $1.85 million more next year for personnel costs to cover union contract pay raises, the budget states.
A three-year contract signed in 2015 with Toledo Firefighters Local 92 granted 0.75 percent annual raises through next year and increased the department’s “minimum manning” requirement from 103 to 107. It will go up to 110 on Jan. 1, 2017, further increasing the city’s costs.
Toledo’s rank-and-file police officers were granted 0.75 percent pay increases each year for the same three years. In 2017, patrolmen with 10 or more years of seniority will be deemed corporals and get a stipend equal to 3 percent of base wages that year.
Personnel costs have steadily increased the past five years, from $97.37 million for base wages in 2013 to $108.25 million in 2017 — an increase of 11.17 percent, or more than $10.8 million.
The mayor promised to slash costs where possible and is pushing for budgeting changes to be offered by the Citizens for Effective Government, a “citizen-led initiative” she established this year to help restructure Toledo’s operations, and the “outcome-based budgeting” process the city began earlier this year to determine the costs and needs for each program.
“I am really holding the line on expenditures, and my goal is to limit that capital-improvements transfer as much as possible,” she said.
In November, 2015, Ms. Hicks-Hudson said she would have to move $10.4 million out of the capital budget into the general fund for 2016 costs. The amount increased to $11.1 million this year — about a 6.7 percent hike.
She plans to take $11.5 million in 2017, a $400,000 increase.
That is unavoidable after years of massive cuts to the city’s share of money from Columbus, the mayor said, but she hopes spending cuts through the year will reduce the amount.
The mayor’s proposed budget estimates state revenue sharing will be $8 million next year, which is $16 million less than Toledo received in 2008.
Eileen Granata, the city’s chief operating officer, said the capital improvement budget will have an extra $2 million in 2017 versus what it had this year. That money comes from about $1 million less in debt service that will be paid next year and about $1 million income tax collections funneled into the capital budget.
“Even with the additional $400,000 [transfer] … we still end up with about $2 million more in the CIP budget,” Ms. Granata said.
The mayor’s proposed budget predicts meager economic growth for the city next year — a 1.46 percent increase in collections from the 2.25 percent payroll tax, increasing from $170.7 million expected this year to $173.2 million in 2017. The income tax is considered a key economic indicator for the city.
The budget proposal was presented to Toledo City Council after its agenda review meeting Tuesday to meet the city charter-mandated Nov. 15 deadline.
Councilmen Tom Waniewski and Sandy Spang said they would not back a budget with a greater transfer from the capital budget.
“It’s time to make the hard choices and use the CIP dollars as they were meant to be used,” Ms. Spang said. “Much has been said about the dollars we have lost from the state, but we have to make that adjustment in our budget.”
Ms. Spang said the city transferred $11 million of capital money into the general fund this year along with $12 million from borrowed money to do its matching grants program that pays for major road repair and replacement.
Mayor Hicks-Hudson said the city likely would borrow again for its 2017 major roadway street program.
“If we can reduce the transfer, we will be in a better position for streets in the spring,” she said.
Savings from cost-cutting could go to the city’s “mill and fill” program, an in-house operation that replaces the top layer of residential streets and patches of asphalt, she said.
Toledo City Council allocated $700,000 this year for the program. No additional money is allocated for repaving residential roads in this budget.
The 2017 budget proposal includes money to hire 40 police officers and 30 firefighters. The safety forces consume 67.5 percent — or $173.9 million — of the general fund. The police department budget will be up to $83.16 million from $82.95 million this year, and the fire department will increase to $73.25 million from $72.1 million this year.
The budget also predicts that general fund revenues will increase to $257.6 million from $253.9 million last year.
The city blew past the budgeted amount expected this year from its controversial handheld, speed-detection cameras, and the mayor expects the program to continue producing money in 2017.
In six months this year, the city collected nearly $1.2 million from fines levied on speeders captured on video by Toledo police officers. That was almost $400,000 more than the $800,000 the administration said it would collect through all of 2016.
The stationary cameras also will bring in more money this year than expected. The city collected $1.36 million through Aug. 31 from its 44 stationary cameras mounted at 28 sites in the first eight months of 2016. That was 91.3 percent of the $1.5 budgeted for the year, according to city records.
Camera citations, assessed as civil penalties, cost violators $120.
The city expects $4.3 million in 2017 — $2 million from the stationary cameras and $2.3 million from the handheld devices.
Under an agreement with Redflex Traffic Systems — the Arizona firm that maintains Toledo’s stationary-camera system and keeps a percentage of those fines — the city is paid $90.25 for the first 50 paid tickets each month and $100 for every ticket after that each month from each handheld device. Under that formula, the city expects to issue more than 23,000 tickets generated by those devices.
The mayor’s office budget will remain flat next year, according to the proposal. Ms. Hicks-Hudson plans to spend $616,980 on base salaries. The nine people working in the mayor’s office includes Ms. Hicks-Hudson, whose annual salary is $122,400.
In addition to the $616,980, she earmarked $86,377 for pensions; $172,673 for employment taxes and medical; $2,200 for “other personnel expenses;” $19,590 for supplies; $30,000 for “other nonpersonnel expenses,” and $111,800 for “services.” Services refers to contractual services, which includes travel, data process charges, advertising, insurance, membership dues, unspecified temporary services, such as copier rental, fuel, and municipal garages charges.
Contact Ignazio Messina at: imessina@theblade.com or 419-724-6171 or on Twitter @IgnazioMessina.
First Published November 16, 2016, 5:07 a.m.
