Local News

2024 Strategic planning: Schlicher delivers state of the city, financial plan of recovery

Mayor Joshua Schlicher gave residents, staff and Marietta City Council members an update Monday night on the state of the city and a plan to save the city $1.2 million this year.

During his state of the city address Monday afternoon, Schlicher said "the state of the city is strong and thriving."

He detailed what his administration has done to help the city, including investing public dollars into city infrastructure which unlocked private capital and making improvements to the downtown business district.

"My administration has laid the groundwork for future economic development to continue a strong legacy from our previous mayors," Schlicher said.

He said the performance audit council requested to analyze governmental efficiency made several recommendations for strategic and financial planning and his administration has taken steps to enact several of the recommendations.

"My department heads making targeted reductions in their budgets my administration will make cost savings of $1.2 million into 2025," he said. "I am therefore asking city council to honor their commitment and not follow through with a sweeping reduction in force ... I do not support drastic job cuts that will impact the quality of services."

Schlicher recognized the department heads in attendance at the state of the city and thanked them for help for the new plan and said they all worked well together.

He did not provide specifics of his plan at the state of the city address. He gave council his plan, which he called the city of Marietta's 2024 strategic plan, later in the evening at a Committee of the Whole meeting inside the Marietta Armory.

The room was full of city employees and others, with people standing in the back, and in attendance were most of the council members, except for Ward 2 Councilman Bret Allphin and Ward 3 Councilman Bill Gosset.

Schlicher went over some of the details of the plan. He said the plan included saving tied to not filling positions that are open.

The plan itself includes 38 different items to cut that total $920,000.

It also includes previous cuts, which are the city auditor returning $5,000 from its budget to the general fund; $90,000 for Marietta City Schools paying for a school resource officer, which Schlicher mentioned Monday night; the health department paying $38,000 for Denovo software, which Schlicher also mentioned; and an extra $147,000 in interest the city received, to bring the grand total to $1.2 million.

Some of the 38 cuts include the court not filling open positions that will cut $184,953 in costs; the police department not filling two officer vacancies and a temporary clerk vacancy to save a total of $117,142; the fire department not filling a vacancy to save $103,717; and the engineering department saving $49,984 due to the retiring of its office manager in April and not filling the position.

Schlicher told council some of these details. He also said the city has $300,000 for tree maintenance and it can trim $20,000 of tree maintenance and still have the resources it needs for tree removal on an emergency basis. He also said the city also got rid of three seasonal cemetery workers positions to save money.

"All the departments and none of the amounts have any reduction in staff," Schlicher said about the plan when he was finished talking about what he called "the highlights."

Council President Susan Vessels asked if anyone on council had questions or comments and there were none. Then all council members who were present voted to enter into executive session for the purpose of negotiations or a bargaining session with a public employee about the terms and conditions of their employment.

Schlicher gave council a financial recovery plan Monday night because it passed a resolution April 24 directing Schlicher to "provide a sustainable 'plan of recovery' concerning the finances of the city" to council on or before May 20, the need for which is the result of a city performance audit that predicted the city's general fund will be depleted as early as 2025. The audit spurred council in March to suggest cutting city staff including seven police department and two fire department positions, merging the Marietta/Belpre and county health departments and cutting some city tax department staff through switching to a third party vendor, which Schlicher responded to by suggesting no staff cuts and not opening the Marietta Aquatic Center this year. Later a plan was reached to have the MAC open this year.

There will be a Finance Committee Meeting at 5:30 p.m. May 23 in Room 10 of the Marietta Armory for council to discuss Schlicher's financial recovery plan.