Nov 21, 2017 3 min read

The city of Washington’s preliminary 2018 budget shows a defecit totaling nearly $400,000.

During last week’s council meeting, Councilman Joe Manning said the numbers are “a few hundred thousand short of where we need to be.” The anticipated revenues for next year are at $13.26 million, and the anticipated expenses are $13.64 million – a deficit of about $387,000.

“We’re looking to close that gap,” Manning said Monday. “It’s a work in progress at this point.”

Council will try to close the gap by its December meeting, when it expects to approve the final budget, said Manning, who heads the finance department.

“We’ve had these kinds of problems in the past and we’ve figured it out,” he said. “We don’t expect to see any decreases in service.”

Manning said the extra expenses in 2018 are largely due to the Washington County property reassessment that went into effect in 2017, which caused the city’s total property value to drop and homeowners to appeal their assessments.

“Since the reassessments, we’ve more or less been living under a spending freeze, other than things that are absolutely necessary,” he said.

He also said the city has experienced increases in health care costs in the last year as well as contractual obligations with the police and fire departments.

Public safety is anticipated to make up 13 percent of next year’s expenses, along with 20 percent in public affairs, 20 percent in debt service and 29 percent going to miscellaneous expenditures. Parks and buildings, and public works each will make up 4 percent of the expenses.

“The budget has stayed relatively stable,” Manning said. “We left the 2017 budget almost identical to the 2016 budget and it will basically be the same going into the 2018 budget.”

Manning said the city has made reductions to its utility bills and property and liability costs.

“We’ve cut spending everywhere we can,” he said. “We’re looking for ways to cut even further – as long as it doesn’t affect public safety – and looking for ways to increase revenues.”

Council also doesn’t want to raise city taxes, Manning said, though “nothing has been finalized.”

“Nobody wants to raise taxes,” he said. “But the reality is government is the same as everything else. If gasoline prices go up for everyone, it goes up for us too.”

Manning said the city has not made any allocations in next year’s budget to pay for the demolition of a Main Street apartment building that collapsed in July.

The demolition was handled by Allegheny Crane Rental of Pittsburgh, whose owner, Kyrk Pyros, threatened last week to sue the for the $1.15 million owed the company for its work. The city solicitor said the city plans to pay Allegheny Crane with insurance money from the building’s owners, but that the case is in litigation.

In other action at its Thursday meeting, council accepted the resignation of council member Tracie Graham. Scott Putnam said Graham has moved out of the city and thus offered her resignation. He and Councilman Kenneth Westcott thanked her for her service to the city.