AUBURN – The City Council will go into the Memorial Day weekend proposing to boost spending by $2.6 million, cut one middle school teacher and tighten the budget belt in other city departments.
A technology teacher at the Auburn middle school would be cut under a proposed 2006 budget put forward Thursday night.
Auburn schools wouldn’t replace two retiring teachers – one in the elementary schools and another at Edward Little High School – and a custodian.
City government would delay hiring a new community relations person and a code enforcement officer, and would pay Economic Development Director Roland Miller’s salary out of tax-increment-financing revenues.
Government spending would still increase with those cuts, roughly $979,000 for the city and $1.67 million for the schools.
That would require an additional $1.79 million in property tax revenues and a tax rate increase.
Councilors will pick up budget talks again at a special budget workshop at 6 p.m. Tuesday. The City Council’s first vote on the budget is scheduled for June 6, after a public hearing.
“I think we’ll go into that first public hearing and people will say it’s not enough,” said City Councilor Eric Samson. Councilors struggled with the budget, saying they wanted to keep tax increases to a minimum but leave jobs intact.
“I don’t want to eliminate any jobs,” City Councilor Donna Lyons Rowell said.
Councilors sent City Manager Pat Finnigan and the Auburn School Committee back to the books Tuesday to look for $1 million in cuts – $650,000 in city spending and $350,000 in school spending. Finnigan and School Superintendent Barbara Eretzian met those goals, but neither was happy.
“I’m not recommending any of these cuts,” Finnigan said. “My department heads are not recommending these cuts. This is what we could come up with, based on the council’s request.”
Finnigan’s changes increased fees the police and fire departments charge for accident investigations, eliminated some public works projects and reduced the scope of some other jobs.
It also would have scrapped plans to put a new officer in Auburn schools, not filled a vacant public works job and eliminated two other undetermined city jobs. Councilor Kelly Matzen balked at those cuts and plans not to replace an Auburn police cruiser. He suggested putting those items back into budget – which councilors did, by consensus.
But Samson said he didn’t agree to Matzen’s additions.
“If we want to, we can sit here all night and keep adding things back in,” Samson said. He said he was frustrated that councilors were not discussing putting the school cuts back in the budget.
“If we’re adding things back in, we ought to do it across the board,” Samson said. “Fair is fair. I think we should just take the budget where it’s at to the public hearing and let people react to that.”
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