Sara Ortega
sortega@weatherforddemocrat.com
Weatherford city residents and employees will feel “service-affecting cuts” as the city prepares to close the gap between the predicted sales tax revenue and the actual coming in Weatherford City Manager Jerry Blaisdell said.
“We’re going to be asking people to do more with less, and in some cases there will be reductions in numbers of people performing tasks,” he said. “We’re looking at a host of options, but we cannot spend money we don’t have.”
Blaisdell announced Thursday the current cuts to cover the rest of the quarter totaled $400,000, and now he says the number is closer to $450,000. The cuts, he said, began with car allowances of upper division employees.
“We’ve done away with all travel expenses that aren’t absolutely mandatory,” he explained. “There are [travel expenses] like training for police and fire that are necessary.”
College tuition reimbursement for all employees was suspended for next semester as well as some membership and certification costs, he added.
Blaisdell said some employees have been placed on 36-hour work weeks resulting in a 5 percent decrease. The largest cuts came from materials cost at $300,000.
Numbers released by State Comptroller Susan Combs reported the local sales tax allocations are down 8.7 percent compared to November 2008. Blaisdell said reports for Weatherford are showing ranges of 18 percent to 20 percent down.
Even with the current state of the economy, Blaisdell said they were expecting a 3 percent increase based on previous reports.
“It was just strange that we were running pretty consistently until June when it hit 18 percent negative and has been holding there for the past few months,” he said.
Road construction may be one cause he blames for the sharp decrease.
“I suspect a lot of it has to do with the construction going on,” he explained. “If people start avoiding our shopping centers, we won’t get that money coming in. But I don’t know that for a fact and there’s no way to track it.”
Since these cuts cover the rest of the year, Blaisdell said he will be closely monitoring reports and re-evaluate in January.
“I’m holding out as long as I can, but I don’t want to wait and not do anything,” he said. “I also don’t want to do something that’s not necessary when it may start recovering.”
