Danville Mayor Scott Eisenhauer says as new budget and tax levy discussions begin the outlook is not pretty. The Mayor discussed the budget and other issues on WDAN Radio’s Newsmakers program Thursday.
Eisenhauer says rising police and fire pension costs are continuing to be a huge concern. And he adds something must be done to create a pension system that is sustainable. ‘’Right now we’re at somewhere between 17 and 20-percent funded. – That is horrific, and that story is not getting any better – it’s getting worse,’’ said the Mayor. ‘’And so what that means to the taxpayers, then, is we’ve got to go and ask them for more money in order to meet this obligation. So we’re going to be going out and asking the public for a million-and-a-half to two-million dollars of new money just because that’s what it’s going to take in order to meet this year’s pension obligation.’’
Mayor Eisenhauer noted that of the city’s twenty-four to twenty-five million dollar budget, fourteen million of it goes to police and fire. The remainder is used for streets, parks and public affairs, along with engineering and urban services. ‘’All we ask is that the taxpayers of the community understand in order to have those things and everything else it means that we have to pay a little bit more at the end of the day. So as we start budget discussions (and) as we start tax levy discussions people are not going to like some of what we say. But understand we’re saying it because the alternative is we start reducing not only those services – but everything else we provide our citizens,’’ added the Mayor.
And while some people say the city needs to cut expenditures – the Mayor points to cuts that were made last year. Among them were twenty-two auxiliary workers who used to cut grass. And now the Mayor says his office gets about forty calls a week from people complaining about tall grass.
