City works to find relief for proposed budget

The city of Huntington is halfway through the budget sessions and doing what they can to find relief for the proposed budget.

"Our budget right now is a budget that has no new revenue sources," said Deron Runyon, director of finance. "So the budget has introduced a lot of cuts on the expense side."

The city council has put $500,000 back into the budget for the police department, Runyon said.

Originally what was proposed was 20 days of rolling furloughs of city employees and the elimination of all citizen positions but one at the Huntington Police Department, Runyon said.

"The city wants to make a statement that crime prevention is key and we want to make sure there is no hint that we will have less police on the streets," he said.

Another consideration of the council was the effect the smoking ban will have on video lottery, he said.

Runyon researched Kanwha County video lottery revenues and saw a consistent 15 percent reduction in reveneues.

The city will also lower the proposed $251,180 by 15 percent, which will be around $40,000, he said.

The budget for the floodwall utilities was reduced by about $100,000, Runyon said.

The city discovered an underground water leak last February that was pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of water into the Ohio River.

With the leak taken care of, the city reduced floodwall expenses and the money that wasn't spent from this fiscal year was noted for the next, Runyon said.