Sidney Prepares For Leaner Budget

Sidney's City Council took a good hard look at its 2018-19 budget during a workshop Wednesday, and found there will be a lot of cuts that could sting a little over the next couple of years.

In making his budget presentation, Sidney City Manager Ed Sadler told council that, at least on paper, the city could be facing up to $1 million in cuts. That's due in part to double counting some revenues, re-budgeting unspent funds and budgeting possible federal grants.

In eliminating those miscues, the "on-paper" picture looks a little better, but the city still faces the need to cut several hundred thousand dollars to make up for a loss in revenue.

Sadler told Council the city had been prepared for an estimated 10 percent drop in sales tax revenues in making estimates last year. That held true for the first half of 2018, but for the past couple of months, sales tax revenues have dropped an additional 10 percent beyond estimates. So with those losses, and the projection of an additional 15 percent loss in property taxes coming up because of lower property valuations, plus less-than-projected revenues from utilities, the real-life estimate was close to the $1 million mark again.

In response, the city will be tightening its belt to the last notch, hoping losses don't last. Based on projections, the city will be cutting non-essential services. Sadler explained the cuts were made by departments' estimates of where they could reduce extra services and avoid causing "life and death" problems for residents.

That doesn't mean there won't be some pain along the way.

"Everybody's going to feel it in some way," Sadler said of the approximate $800,000 in cuts. Even with the cuts, if estimates hold true, the general fund could have a potential deficit of about $165,000.

Most of the cuts will be in "extra services" that have been provided by the city without added cost to taxpayers. Nearly all those services involved either overtime by city employees, or were performed by part-time employees.

Going forward, there aren't any part-timers on the city payroll, and overtime must be explicitly approved by Sadler. He explained to council some services people have received were performed on overtime and are among the eliminations.

"We're not going to endanger anyone, but we have to make these reductions," Sadler said. Some examples he have were turning on utility services late in the day, weekend trash pickup

and other services that put employees into overtime. He said when departments have weekend work that have to be performed, they are adjusting their schedules accordingly.

"If they have to be out two hours for a scheduled task on the weekend, they need to be going home early during the week," he said.

Sadler said he understands there are times of emergency where crews need to be called out.

"You can't help those things," he said, "we will still take care of the have-to's." But he added crews are going to make the best effort to avoid the overtime when they can.

Other changes include reductions in setting aside funds for equipment. Sadler said the fire department was due to set aside $200,000 for the future purchase of a fire truck. For the second year, that amount was reduced to $80,000.

"We'll still be able to replace the truck at some point," Sadler said, "but it's going to have to be further down the road."

Sadler said with the changes, the city won't have to make personnel changes at this time, and doesn't want to.

"We've done all we can without getting into full time personnel," he told council. "Any more and we would have to start cutting people."

In discussing some of the cuts, council members expressed some services and programs they would like to keep. Sadler said "You can keep some of those if you want, but that would mean a higher deficit."

Council members talked about alternative methods of keeping some programs. Two they zeroed in on were the City Tree Program and mowing along 11th Avenue coming off of Old Post Road. Both, they said, are important as the city looks to draw new people and businesses.

"That is a main entrance into town," said Councilman Roger Gallaway in addressing mowing schedules. "It's one of the first things people see when they come into town. We need to maintain a good presentation."

Alternatives included the potential to seek sponsors for the tree program and volunteers for mowing in some areas in some sort of adopt-a-trail type program.

Sadler will make a list of potential areas where such programs could be used.

In the meantime, Sadler said with the new people who have come into town and the businesses looking at Sidney for expansion, he hopes for the best.

"I really feel things will be better in a couple of years," he said.

Below is a list of reductions planned for city services:

Budget FY 2018/2019

List of Service Reductions

Parks/Cemetery

Parks

Reduce part-time summer staff by three positions

Reduce mowing and water and City greenspaces without playgrounds. Mow every other week:

San Marino Circle

Verde Lane and Baudick Park

Triangle on El Rancho

South 11th walking trail irrigated bluegrass sod

Transportation building

City Hall, Fire Hall & Library

Old swimming pool

Weekly mowing will continue at areas with playgrounds and Disc Golf:

Legion Park and family pond

War Memorial

Tennis and sand volleyball

Deer Run Park

North Park

Reduce ballfield mowing to once per week (Mon.) from twice per week (Mon. and Thurs.)

Slope-mowers reduced mowing areas. Only weekly will be on irrigated portions of the flood ditch, pond and Verde Lane slopes

Areas not mowed will be:

Boot Hill

Camp Lookout

Area between Aquatic and T-Ball fields

Walking trail slopes and trail edges from Legion Park to Fairgrounds

Walking trail from Deer Run to Hilltop near Sapp Brothers Truck Stop

Walking trail at South 11th from Summit to Old Post Road stoplight

Cease supplemental feeding of fish at Pond

Reduce porta-potty rentals from 11 unites to 6 units. Removal from:

Walking trail (1) near rest home on Toledo

Soccer remove (2) of 4

Legion Pond and playground (1)

Tennis/Sand volleyball (1)

This will leave 2 at soccer field, 2 at horseshoe pits and 2 and North Park

Tree Program budget dropped.

Tree City USA and Arbor Day Celebration can be held in April 2019, without the Annual City of Sidney Tree-Giveaway. In April 2020, we will not be recognized for 2019 Tree City USA, as we most likely will not have met the parameter of spending $2 per capita on City tree care.

Drop Shade for Sidewalks program for summer 2019.

Cemetery

Reduce mowing and irrigation.

Mow ½ cemetery each week on alternating schedules.

Memorial Day Monday

Reduce Monday labor assisting with patron questions from two staffers to zero. Has been two persons about 9 a.m. until noon.

General Administration

Outside legal services eliminated.

LIBRARY

All part-time staff will be released. Full-time staff will go to a flexible 6-day, 40-hour schedule to cover their loss. The library will close an hour earlier on Monday – Thursday and Saturday. When sick and vacation time is used, it may be a challenge to have two staff members present in the library at all times creating a safety issue since part-time staff cannot be utilized.

The library staff will take on all janitorial work.

Computer upgrade of the 6-year old public computers will be put on hold.

Staff and board will not be reimbursed for training and associated travel, which may impact the library's certification if the necessary training credits cannot be completed

No additional reserves made toward a new bookmobile.

Materials budget will be cut so fewer new books will be available.

With the schools going one-to-one with Chromebooks for their students, the library's wifi internet access will be critical for the students who don't have internet access at home or live in communities with poor service. A service hour reduction will limit their access at the library when we should be considering having service on Sunday to accommodate them.

Golf

When leagues are finished in September, close the golf shop at 7 p.m. for service and close the bar and grill down at 5 p.m. for service, letting golfers know that services will be limited. Beers and drinks would be available by Jody or Patrick.

Close restaurant side on Sundays after 3 p.m. for food service in September. Beer and liquor would be available.

Reduce food menu items in late August to save on purchasing.

Reduce mowing of rough areas in late August weather permitting to twice a week instead of three days a week.

Apply greens growth regulator to stunt growth when greens come out of aerification. Use greens roller at least twice to three times a week to save 30% mowing times.

Reduce cleaning for carpet mats and towels for food and beverage. Will wash at house.

Shut down course earlier in November to save on mowing and other maintenance costs.

Police

Reduce to one-night shift patrol

Will cause less time to be dedicated to foot patrols and extra patrol house watches, keeping the unit mobile patrolling and or enforcing traffic laws

Discontinue SWAT

Four officers are assigned to SWAT team, training 16 hours each a month to maintain minimum level of readiness. All training hours are outside of regular shift work.

Skeleton crew for holidays reducing response time and type of extra patrol activities during a normal shift

Public presentations re: active shooter, county government day, cyber safety, bike safety, Halloween safety, stranger danger, drug identification, fraud awareness, driver ed, drug education program at schools.

Parade and special event traffic control and security.

Currently require officers to complete reports daily to county attorney and public on accidents, we would not have next day service for this.

Two officers trained to provide child car seat installation and inspection for public and hospital. Usually called back to work to conduct these checks.

Providing safety books to business and school.

Performing DRE (drug recognition evaluations) for outside agencies unless one is working.

Transportation

If needed, the following two measures will be taken:

Take one hour off the daily Stage Line bus route.

Eliminate Saturdays from the Stage Line schedule.

Solid waste

Reduce mowing landfill lot and flood ditch.

Reduce recycling hours.

Reduce Saturdays to once a month (2nd Saturday)

Eliminate Evacuation Certification of Freon from air conditioners and refrigerators

Eliminate maintenance of compost pile, using with dirt to cover bale pit

Streets

Paint markings once in the fall before school starts

Mow and trim right-of-ways and ditches twice a year, June or July and fall

Cut back on over-time hours removing snow, starting later and working only 8 hours each day, which will require a longer period of time for roads to be cleared.

Street sweeping would be changed to twice a year from one end of town to the other in spring and fall and after any major storm.

Street sweeping downtown early Friday mornings from June 1st to Sept. 1st.

Reduce grading of streets and alleys to actual need rather than doing them all.

Water

Cut schedule overtime on weekends, will average water pumped from Friday to Monday.

Reduce hydrant replacement from give hydrants a year to two hydrants a year.

Reduce training to just needed CEU to maintain licenses.

No shut-offs and turn-ons after 3:30 on weekdays unless it is an emergency.

Sewer

Complete only scheduled maintenances and repairs as needed.

Cut out lining of one sewer main and rebuilding three manholes.

Wastewater

Replace the fine bubbler diffusers, moving back a year or until they start to fail.

Delay buying heat pump/PTAC unit. Will have current one repaired.

Delay buying lab drying oven that was planned to update to a modern oven with better controls.