CURWENSVILLE – On Tuesday night Curwensville Borough Council began a line-by-line review of rough budget numbers for 2009.
As of now the rough numbers show estimated income at $877,283 and estimated expenses at $938,242. This leaves a deficit of $60,959.
While council referenced proposed expenditures from the 2008 budget, they used actual expenditures to come to conclusions on 2009’s proposed expenditures.
Some of the biggest numbers the borough looked at involved the police department.
According the 2008 budget that was passed, the prior council finalized projected police expenditures at $106,995 while the actual expenditures came out to $257,947.
This year, employing two police officers, the borough is projecting police expenditures of $74,755.
Last year the borough employed seven police officers.
The comparisons between last year’s proposed numbers and the actual expenditures raised the eyebrows of council members present. Duane Wriglesworth, who served with the last council, looked at paperwork from last year’s budget meeting. He noted that notes he had from that meeting showed projected expenditures of $212,000.
Another instance that did not match up was in the engineer category. According to Wriglesworth $5,000 was the number in his paperwork from the prior year. The number in the accepted budget was $0.
Council President Mark Curulla indicated that council should concentrate on the present, not the past.
Council directed Secretary Autumn Norris to go over last year’s minutes to see if she could find the reasons for the discrepancies. She was also directed to calculate averages over expenditures over the last three years.
“We cannot pass this budget with a deficit,” said Curulla, getting back to the rough deficit of $60,959.
Curulla stated that one way council could break even on the budget is by releasing one more police officer. Curulla stated that including wages and benefits it would save the borough about $70,000.
“That’s something for everyone here to think over,” said Curulla.
Council member Fred Sopic suggested laying off a member of the road crew in March to make up the deficit.
Council will meet again on Monday to work toward a solution.