Knowing where to look

By Published by The Editorial Board

Published: June 5, 2008

It didn’t take long to find $600,000 to cut from Danville’s proposed 2008-09 budget. Some will call that money fat, while others see it as a cushion. Either way, finding those cuts means an end to one of the most contentious budget sessions Danville has seen in nearly a decade.

Just a few days after Danville City Council opted for a “revenue neutral” property tax rate of 73 cents per $100 of assessed value, Danville City Manager Jerry Gwaltney announced the proposed budget cuts.

Most of the money cut from the proposed budget — $500,000 — represents salaries for currently vacant city jobs. Since the city’s departments can hire more people than they have on their payroll at any one time, city departments have unspent money in their budgets to fill those vacancies.

But the money won’t be there next year. As a result, some city jobs just won’t be filled.

“It’s just one that I have been trying to get rid of,” Gwaltney said of the cut. “That was the least obnoxious place to go.”

Given the amount of turnover every company, government and agency endures, it shouldn’t be too tough for the city government to leave “authorized” jobs vacant for as long as necessary. They’ll have to, because the money set aside to hire people to fill those jobs simply won’t be available.

Another $100,000 of this year’s budget cuts came out of a $200,000 contingency fund that was used to cover budget line item shortfalls throughout the year.

The revised city budget has already survived its first reading by Danville City Council, and it will probably be passed at council’s June 17 meeting.

While these cuts will require more discipline from the city’s department heads over the next 12 months, they don’t cut one of the most important things in the city’s budget: Salaries for city workers.

Over the past few years, City Council and the city administration have worked hard to make sure that Danville’s salaries were not only competitive, but that new employees wouldn’t be paid more than people who had worked for the city for several years. The fix was expensive, but it was well worth the effort — especially considering the high cost of training new workers.

Danville’s proposed budget protects some of the most important city spending while cutting what the city can live without next year.