WARREN - Water Pollution Control Director Tom Angelo said there is a $60,000 hole in his 2009 payroll budget because of unemployment and separation pay the department incurred with employee transfers from other departments.
Auditor David Griffing estimated the shortfall at closer to $80,000 during a budget discussion Wednesday with the Water and Water Pollution Control departments.
Angelo said that during the layoff process at the end of last year, several employees from other departments bumped wastewater employees with less seniority. When more layoffs occurred in July, the employees were working in his department, so their unemployment and separation pay were taken from his budget rather than the department from which they came.
He said there are 53 employees in his 2010 budget, noting he lost three people in the stormwater division. The fund still is solvent and he would like to fill those three positions to return the level to eight, he said. The stormwater division had four employees at this time last year, Angelo said.
"If your department is 100 percent solvent and you have the work for them to do, why do you only have five?" Councilwoman Sue Hartman, D-7th, asked.
Angelo responded that he was being prudent because of the weak economy and because he loses customers on a weekly basis.
"Every house that is demolished or foreclosed on is one less paying account," Angelo said.
The Water Pollution Control Department will have a negative revenue stream of between $500,000 and $600,000 by the end of the year, but it has money in reserve to make up the shortfall, he said.
Part of the problem is Trumbull County has raised its stormwater fees four times in the past 12 years while Warren's have remained stagnant, Angelo said.
He used the example of Howland Meter No. 1, which includes the Trumbull Country Club area and streets in the area of Blessed Sacrament Church. In those areas, customers are billed at the city rate of $2.74 per 100 cubic feet, while the county charges the city $3.50 per 100 cubic feet. The shortfall from the Howland Meter No. 1 area alone is $353,000, Angelo said.
In the Water Department, Councilman Fiore Dippolito, D-1st, questioned why the 2010 budget accounts for 87 employees when Utility Services Director Bob Davis said he has 85. Human Resources Director Gary Cicero said it's because there were two employees going through the disability retirement process when the budget was prepared who now have officially left the payroll.
However, Dippolito said the department's authorized strength as set by council in 1994 is 84, so there is still one extra employee. Cicero said a secretary was moved from the engineering department to the water department and a breakdown of the water department employees shows there is 85.
Davis said his department has had 85 people since 2001 and Dippolito questioned how that was possible if council did not approve the increase.
"I will not vote for a water rate increase if people are being added over there," Dippolito said following the meeting.
Councilman Dan Crouse, at-large, chairman of the water and water pollution control committee, said he plans to schedule another budget hearing with Davis and Angelo to discuss the issues further.