Ford City Tentative Budget Calls for Police Cuts
Ford City Borough Council has approved its tentative 2015 budget - which will eliminate at least 11 part-time police officers to trim costs and prevent a tax increase.
by Jonathan Weaver
At the continuation of their special meeting, Ford City Borough Council members agreed on a tentative $7.5 million budget.
But, the $2 million General Fund had at least one major cut: the public safety budget.
The 2014 budget had nearly $515,000 allotted toward public safety, but that budget was cut by more than 40 percent to less than $292,000 in the 2015 tentative budget.
The 2015 allocation for part-time police officers was cut nearly $88,000 – down to less than $39,000.
This is Borough Mayor Marc Mantini’s eighth budget
“I’m going to look at it and make sure that it’s correct,” Mayor Mantini said. “This is ridiculous – how do you schedule them if you can’t pay them?”
With slightly-more than $161,000 allocated for full-and part-time police salaries, Mayor Mantini was concerned how many police officers would remain employed in January. There are currently two full-time and 12 part-time officers on the roster.
Council President Kathy Bartuccio said council members went over the budget line-by-line before the unanimous decision to accept the tentative budget. A decision needed to be made by December 1, according to Borough Manager Eden Ratliff.
“We did cut a few things – we had to to make things work,” Bartuccio said.
Ratliff said elected officials had “significantly-less money” to utilize to subsidize the General Fund budget – usually aided by public utility funds shifted for a new Borough water treatment plant currently under-review.
He said the tentative budget passage ensures that taxpayers will not see a tax increase in 2015.
“We can’t raise or lower taxes at this point, but we can change where the money’s going,” Ratliff said. “We can make minor changes to the budget because it has to be adopted 30 days from now.
“We have fundamentally changed the way we are operating,” Ratliff added. “We had to make drastic cuts.”
Pending litigation with full-time officers and council discussion about a new police cruiser last week could alter the 2015 budget or the final bills in 2014 as well.
Police benefits were also slashed nearly $60,000, along with supplies.
Borough Council members will vote on the budget during the last week of December. It is now available for public inspection at the Borough office.
By sbmworker, November 28, 2014 @ 6:27 AM
So glad to hear no raise in taxes! Sounds like FC council may have this police issue under control. Benefits needed to be slashed. My benefits went up approximately $350 a month. Guess who has to pay the difference? Me! Did I get a raise? No. What makes the FC-PD any more special than the rest of this world?
By jorn jensen, November 28, 2014 @ 12:13 PM
Kudos to council for working toward an on-time budget plan. Ex-governor Ed Rendell should have tried that also.
By waldo, December 1, 2014 @ 12:19 PM
it looks to me like we have turned the town over to the teenager boro manager and council has abdicated their responsiblities.Now we have a scape goat to blame all the problems on. you don’t believe a teenager can build a water plant do you the whole town is a joke ha ha we have 3 gyms 2 dollar stores and no grocery stores if we can’t pay the bills now how will the 90 million dollar school be paid