Holly officials approve 09-10 budget without employee furloughs

HOLLY, Michigan – Village officials had a slightly different “ala carte menu” of proposed budget cuts to review Tuesday night as they prepared to make the necessary reductions to balance the fiscal year 09-10 budget.

During last week’s budget work session, council members’ ala carte menu of potential budget cut items included the possible elimination of fireworks, eliminating Nextel phones used by administrative staff, elimination of a seasonal Department of Public Works position, reductions in general fund transfers to account for Neighborhood Stabilization Fund reimbursements, changing over to an e-billing system for village office phone services, elimination of the employee appreciation program, and possibly reducing down to a four-day work week. Although severance of all eight items would save the village $26,831.60, council members still needed to find an additional $23,386 to balance the budget.

While Village Manager Marsha Powers presented council with salary options and total savings pertaining to one, two, three and five furlough days per employee, council eventually agreed to a five-day furlough plan for all village employees which would result in an additional savings of $36,505.70 to the budget.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Kevin Walters expressed his appreciation for the council’s ability to make these tough decisions, but also asked the members to possibly reconsider the option of going to a four-day work week.

“As far as the four, 10-hour days go, I don’t know if you’ve considered all of the consequences of that,” Walters said. “It’s going to create complications because for some people, they get 10 hours off for a holiday, and others in the village who work 8-hour days will only get 8 hours of holiday pay – how are you going to deal with that?”

Changes to the budget cuts included elimination of the $1,750 in utility savings from the village offices being closed on Fridays, and health insurance changes for village employees in lieu of implementing the five-day furlough plan.

Although Powers met with Teamsters representatives on Tuesday, she said the union group did not take a vote on going to the four-day work week, requiring her to remove the $1,750 amount associated with village office utilities cost savings from the bottom line.

Perhaps the biggest change was additional changes made to village employee health benefits instead of the mandatory five-day furlough plan.

Powers said negotiations made with the Teamsters and the police unions allowed her to change the Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy to a 20-percent deductible plan. “The savings will be taken from Feb. 1-June 30 at a cost of $34,269.05,” she said. Powers said the decision to forego the furlough idea came after she discussed the matter with Police Chief Rollie Gackstetter after the budget work session.

“The police department would have a rather difficult time in scheduling furlough time, especially with dispatchers – someone has to be seated in that seat for a 24-hour period, and we probably wouldn’t be able to accomplish that,” she said.

On Wednesday, Gackstetter said the need to act on the current budget shortfall at the work session did not accommodate full discussions between himself and Powers. “After the work session, the serious service impact of furlough days in the police department was thoroughly discussed, and I agree that the insurance alternative was a better solution at this time.”

Power said she and Clerk/Treasurer Susan Nassar had altered their budgets to make up for the $2,236 difference between the furlough and health insurance solutions, including elimination of business travel expenses, funding for employee appreciation and community betterment.

The Village Council passed the budget reductions unanimously. The cuts bring a total of $60,100.65 savings to the current fiscal year budget.