Lorain City Council formally approved the 2016 city budget this week, though there are plenty of cuts built into the document.
Given the nature of recent budget hearings — and the difficult decisions that still lay ahead — it's notable that the city passed its budget in the last few hours before the state-mandated deadline.
The latest Morning Journal report paints a frustrated picture of City Hall, where Mayor Chase Ritenauer braces his community for the year ahead. “I am angry as well," he told the paper. "We are in a difficult situation for a lot of reasons, but we must make sure we pass a balanced budget. We will continue to work at it and hope the actions taken this evening will solidify us as we move into the future. We will also continue to work with employees on cost savings ideas.”
As budget hearings wore on over the past few months, Ritenauer's administration more clearly laid out the case for cuts across all departments: layoffs and union concessions, specifically. Department heads aren't pleased, based on interviews conducted by the Morning Journal, and city residents are growing increasingly impassioned over the decision-making process. (A recent council meeting saw residents applauding a suggested 10-percent pay cut from city workers, for instance.)
As 2016 waxes onward, the mayor's approach to steering the financial ship is sure to remain A1 news.
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