The City of Newark saw some unexpected developments in its budget at the end of the second quarter.
Newark’s director of finance Jill Hollander presented updates to the city’s budget at Monday’s Council meeting.
The city is currently looking at a $7 million shortfall to its overall budget while city leaders are requesting 10 new positions, something Councilmembers say isn’t feasible.
“We can't have all 10,” Councilmember Corinth Ford said. “Something's gotta give. Simply, as the mayor pointed out, we just can't afford 10 new positions.”
Hollander said updated revenue numbers were $129 thousand lower than budgeted and operating expenditures were $161 thousand more than budgeted.
Parking fines are also trending lower than expected, likely due to the fact that there were fewer people downtown in the second quarter.
Overall, the city’s estimates were off by $107 thousand as of June 30. But there were some areas where the city spent less than anticipated, Hollander said.
“Personnel Services had $164,000 positive variance,” Hollander said. “And this is again due primarily to vacancies. The variance resulted from both salary savings and avoided health care costs.”
Hollander added that some of the vacancies are in the police department while others are in public works, including open positions for people with CDL licenses.
Several departments continue to make the case for adding more full-time staff while Councilmembers consider the prospect of raising taxes.
Mayor Travis McDermott said a budget including all of the requested staff isn’t likely to pass given the current circumstances.
“You're rowing the same boat with the rest of the city,” McDermott said. “That's 10. If you do $100 thousand [each], you can do the math. That's like a 10% property tax increase just for new employees right across the city.”
Among the positions requested is full-time IT Network Administrator to address cybersecurity and infrastructure modernization as outlined in the city’s Information Technology Strategic Plan.
Newark IT infrastructure manager Donald Lynch said hiring an additional staffmember would mitigate risk.
“We have one employee that does this work right now,” Lynch said. “If he takes off, if he gets sick, we try to piece that together with normal networking items… We can cover the basics, but when you start to get into more specialized items, we don't really have any other staff that can do that work.”
Hollander concurred, adding that the person currently in the role is likely close to retirement.
“We rely on it for the whole entire city, cyber security,” Hollander said. “So, I'm not suggesting that something's going to happen, but if it did, the more people that we have in the IT department, the better. And we are very thinly staffed, very thinly.”
Councilmember Corinth Ford said she will not approve an IT Network Administrator this year.
“We have to make some very hard choices this year about which positions… I think the Planning Department's request, your request for the personnel is one that I'm going to say I will not approve this year, not because it doesn't have merit,” Ford said.
Just last week, Newark Parks and Recreation requested two full-time positions.
The other requested positions include two public works staff, an assistant manager for the 911 dispatch center, three positions for the administrative department, and several transitions from part-time to full-time positions in the planning department.
