AUBURN — One last effort to add an assistant city manager municipal staff failed Monday night as city councilors voted to adopt their $65 million budget.
Councilors voted 4-3 to adopt the budget calling for $30.9 million of municipal spending, $34.7 million in school spending and $1.9 million in county spending. Councilors Dan Herrick, Ray Berube and Belinda Gerry all voted against the budget.
They’ll see the budget again for a second and final reading at their June 20 meeting.
As proposed, the current budget calls for $184,936 increase in the property tax levy and tax increase of 27 cents for every $1,000 of property value. It would mean increase a property tax bill for a $145,000 home by $39.15.
City Manager Glenn Aho said he was pleased with the work that councilors and staff did. As first proposed back in March, the budget called for $3.2 million more spending and a tax rate increase of $1.74 for every $1,000 of property value.
“We made a lot of changes and we did a lot of work to get it down to 27 cents,” Aho said. “I think we’ve done our due diligence, considering we started with a shortfall in state revenues.”
But Aho’s restructuring of city staff, which started last year, continued to be a concern for councilors. Councilor Belinda Gerry said she objected to the current proposed chart having Aho as the top manager and three team leaders answering directly to him. She proposed spending $50,000 to hire an assistant city manager.
“If something happens to the city manager, we have nothing, we have nobody to fall back on,” Gerry said.
But Councilor Ray Berube disagreed.
“I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that should he die in his bed tonight, every department head at City Hall would operated just like he was in his office,” Berube said.
Councilor Dan Herrick said he continues to get complaints about city services, saying quality in Auburn was going away and the city was taking steps backwards. But Councilor Mike Farrell said service problems could be blamed on cuts councilors made to the budget last year.
“We dumped a big plate of changes on the city manager and staff and said ‘Make it Happen’ — and they are,” Farrell said. “It’s starting to show, and it’s starting to gel. But changes of that magnitude do not happen overnight.”
Councilors voted down Gerry’s amendment by a 5-2 vote. Only Gerry and Herrick supported it.
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