Council sets deadline for cost-saving ideas from administration

Marietta City Council has given city administration a deadline to come up with plans for cost savings as an alternative to staff cuts that have been proposed due to a negative performance audit prediction thate the city's general fund will be empty by as early as 2025.

During a joint finance and employee relations committee meeting Monday evening, Ward 1 Councilman and Finance Committee Chair Michael Scales brought up the mayor, city auditor and department heads coming up with cost saving measures.

"Now we've been going around and around about how to take care of that deficit and it seems no matter what we do someone says no," Scales said. "At last count I saw there were five different renditions on different aspects of the elimination of jobs. So, you sit here and you listen, listen, listen. So I made the suggestion to my fellow councilors that, apparently (cuts) should be up to the mayor and the auditor and elected officials ... not us. We're legislators and apparently we don't know what's going on." Scales suggested they give council a plan for long term sustainable cost reductions to bring revenue in line with expenses.

"I'm not going to sit here and go on and on about who, what, when and where, when it comes to layoffs or where we're gonna cut, what we're gonna cut, who's gonna get cut," Scales said. "That's up to the mayor and his department heads, and it's up to the auditor and treasurer and judge."

At-Large Councilman Harley Noland said he agreed with Scales. Ward 2 Councilman Bret Allphin said he was anxious to see what recommendations from departments yield.

Ward 4 Councilwoman Erin ON'eill said that she agreed with Scales and that the administration knows better how departments function but the fact remains the city stands where it stands financially.

Scales said that if the money is not there to pay things then it will be up to the mayor and the administration to decide who is going to be laid off.

Scales said the mayor, administration and department heads have until June 28 to come up with cuts and if they didn't council would come to each department and ask them for a percentage of their budget.

At Large Councilwoman Cassidi Shoaf suggested four weeks instead and Scales countered by saying they would give everyone until four weeks from next Monday to come up with plans.

City Law Director Paul Bertram confirmed that date would be May 22.

Scales also said he would like to propose legislation to have the state auditor come down and assess the city to see if they are close to being in fiscal caution.

According to the state auditor's website, fiscal distress is a legislative mechanism used to identify financial problems as soon as possible and provide assistance to entities in need, and it has three categories: fiscal caution, fiscal watch and fiscal emergency.

If a local government ends up in fiscal emergency it comes under the oversight of a financial planning and supervision commission and the auditor serves as the "financial supervisor" to the commission.

Bertram said he wants to run that idea by their bond counsel first to see if the city being put in fiscal caution would affect their bond rating. Scales pointed out that a lower bond rating can increase the cost of the city borrowing money.

Scales told Bertram he already sent a message to the auditor and has received a response. There was no other talk of the legislation asking on the topic.

Shoaf confirmed after the meeting that Scales did receive a response and shared it with council members and it was from a staff member at the auditor's office that said she asked for information from the mayor and auditor and asking if there was any other information the city wanted her to have. Shoaf said it did not actually confirm that the auditor would be coming to assess the city on whether they should be in fiscal caution.

During the meeting Shoaf said she will request legislation to increase how much elected officials pay for their health insurance. Bertram confirmed that elected officials pay 15% of the premium and the city pays 85%. Shoaf said she would be asking for the officials' amount to increase to 30%, essentially doubling it.

Scales said council is paid $340 a month and that the increase would not leave much of left of that amount. Shoaf agreed, stating it would likely bring it near zero.

Scales left after this discussion for another meeting he had to go to.

Council members in attendance at the meeting also discussed an ordinance it passed during the March 21 council meeting. Ordinance No. 40 (24-25) got rid of a city employee being able to use their spouse's insurance policy as a secondary insurance policy if the spouse is also a city employee, which was expected to save $60,000.

Bertram stated that the Teamsters Union is saying the ordinance is not valid because employees must opt out of their insurance being used as a "windfall" policy for their spouse who is also a city employee.

No legislation was proposed because the only council member left by the end was Shoaf and City Council President Susan Vessels.

Shoaf said they can look at changing the amount the city pays for on the second policy from 15% percent to a higher amount but she does not know what the other council members want as the amount so she did not want to suggest legislation as the chair of the employee relations committee.

Noland and O'Neill left the meeting without stating why partway through. On Tuesday they both confirmed the reason they left was they had other meetings they had to be at.

Scales said during the meeting he was leaving because of a prior commitment. Shoaf confirmed Allphin had said earlier that he had another meeting he had to go to.

At-Large Councilman Ben Rutherford and Ward 4 Councilman Bill Gossett were not at the meeting.

Meeting attendees expressed disapproval of the city trying to get rid of the way the spouse policies currently work and of increasing the amount, including Marietta Police Detective A.J. Linscott and Marietta Code Enforcement Officer Wayne Rinehart.

There is a city council meeting Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in room 10 of the Marietta Armory.

Michelle Dillon can be reached at mdillon@newsandsentinel.com