ROCKLAND, Maine — The closure of the recreation center, elimination of the city manager and city lawyer positions, and reduction of public hours at City Hall and the library were all options in a worst-case budget scenario presented Wednesday by City Manager James Chaousis.
Even with those cuts, however, the manager said he was unable to come up with the full $1 million in reductions he was asked to make from the originally proposed $11.4 million spending plan for 2015-16.
After Chaousis submitted his original proposal — which is up from the current $10.9 million — the City Council last week requested that he develop three plans showing what it would be like to cut $300,000, to cut $600,000 and to cut $1 million from the spending package.
The manager developed scenarios for $300,000 and $600,000 in cuts, but he said that to reach the $1 million mark, he would need to eliminate jobs in public safety and public services.
“I have fallen short in my brief assignment to illustrate a tiered approach to recommending $1 million worth of municipal expense reductions, but I have likely given the City Council some perspective on how this would be approached to determine if we go that far,” Chaousis said.
The discussion of the various budget scenarios was prompted by an email submitted by Councilor Larry Pritchett more than two weeks ago. He pointed out that the proposed budget represented the largest increase that he can remember.
The jump is attributed mostly to a projected $1.5 million increase in the local assessment for Regional School Unit 13.
Pritchett said at a meeting last week that the council would like to see what three levels of additional cuts would mean before deciding whether they would be acceptable. He said Rockland is paying on the high end for what service centers across the state pay for services.
Chaousis said closing the recreation center, cutting the full-time in-house lawyer and reducing hours at the library would net about $348,000 in cuts. He recommended, however, that the city keep the recreation center building and try to find an outside organization that could provide recreational services.
To get to the $600,000 level, Chaousis said the city would have to not fill the fire chief position, cut the city manager post, eliminate the assistant harbormaster, reduce City Hall public hours to 30 per week and restructure benefits for employees.
At Monday night’s council meeting, former Councilor Adele Grossman Faber criticized the proposed cuts suggested by Chaousis.
“He has come in like a bull in a china shop. There is a better way,” Faber said.
Faber made several recommendations including increasing revenues for use of city property and charging far more for outside contractors to dispose of debris.