Council approves 2019 budget

Avon Lake City Council approved a 2019 budget which calls for more than $5.8 million in capital projects.

Mayor Greg Zilka is looking forward to a momentous 2019 for the city and thanked department heads for their hard work.

“You always can’t predict what happens over a 12 month period so a number of things will have to be adjusted,” Zilka said. “But basically this appropriation for the current year and the appropriation for 2019 is based on the experience of people in the various departments and we think despite all the capital projects we are committed to this is going to be a very productive year and one that’s going to serve the residents well.”

The city will move forward with capital improvement projects including $2.2 million in road infrastructure improvements, $1.1 million on storm sewers and the purchase of a new fire truck at an estimated price tag of $600,000 in addition to the planned purchase of three police cruisers.

The city is spending close to $1 million in land improvements and about $270,000 in parks improvements.

Zilka added the budget will see the city finishing a number of projects in concert with Avon Lake Regional Water and road infrastructure projects.

“It certainly is an aggressive plan of almost $6 million in capital improvements,” said Finance Director Steve Presley. “We’ll have to see how we can continue to do that. I’m not certain we can do that every year but certainly we will be doing it in 2019.”

In addition, Avon Lake is budgeting increases in the Avon

Lake Fire Department as they move toward three nine person platoons after hiring two new firefighters in 2018.

Council-at-Large member K.C. Zuber was the sole dissenter, and expressed some concerns about the budget review process.

“In the past when we’ve passed a budget we’ve had

three full readings on the budget. We’re passing this under emergency first reading,” Zuber said.

Zuber stressed his view that Council had not reviewed departmental spending “line by line” in a number of city departments and wanted more consideration for new Council members to be involved in the process in passing a temporary budget and allowing Council to go through three full readings.

“We have two new council people. Last year we had to work under a budget that we didn’t have a chance to vote on,” Zuber added. “I

“It certainly is an aggressive plan of almost $6 million in capital improvements. We’ll have to see how we can continue to do that. I’m not certain we can do that every year but certainly we will be doing it in 2019.”

— Finance Director Steve Presley

hope in the future Council will take that into consideration. When someone new on Council comes in, that they can sit for budget process so they learn and are involved so if they have something specific they want done that they campaigned on they want money appropriated for they can have a voice in the budget, unlike what Council has decided to do over

the past several years.”

In response Zilka noted that Council has worked well in the present budget process in streamlining the financial planning process for city departments and allowing the city to meet the needs of Avon Lake residents.

“Members of Council in the last four or five years have felt that it works very, very well,” Zilka said. “It’s a matter of style and there are advantages in both systems but we’re locked into this system and I think we get a pretty good handle of how it’s going to turn out.”

Zilka