Eastside Defender

The City Council has adopted Mayor Rybak’s revised 2009 budget. The budget required revision due to decreases in expected City revenue. In response to the revenue shortfall, the Mayor had threatened to cut 57 sworn officers from the Police Department. Instead, the adopted budget uses one-time funds to avoid public safety cuts for 2009:

One-time funds provided by the federal Recovery and Reinvestment Act will pay for 76 positions in the police department, including 57 sworn officer positions which would have otherwise been cut.

Unfortunately, the Council was not able to find funding to fill six vacancies in the Fire Department. Those spots will go unfilled.

The Mayor admits this budget only pushes the problem into the future, and renews his threat to public safety funding:

“Unless significant changes are made by the State, in 2010 we will need to make very tough and very painful cuts that will have an impact on every part of the City,” Rybak said. “Just how painful those cuts are will depend in large part on the economy, and the State, neither of which have been very helpful lately.”