Quincy makes deep budget cuts
By Sandi Beare – Herald Correspondent

The City of Quincy took several nights to hammer out details of where it would make severe cuts in expenses in an attempt to get its financial picture back into focus. Finance director Theresa Moore told commissioners that the city has a negative balance of $2.5 million.
On Monday, it voted on several proposals to bring its costs back in line with revenues. NetQuincy, a money-losing venture for years, will be spun off after a unanimous vote. “It’s cheaper for us to move NetQuincy off the payroll than keep it,” said interim city manager Jack McLean. “We’ll still have the debt service, but it needs to go off the payroll. Our three main goals are to protect the city’s interest in NetQuincy, help market it, and look at others who might want to participate (in its operation),” said McLean. “We’re paying the debt service now and it’s not making any money,” he added. The spin-off will save the city about $290,000.
The board also voted to increase commercial utility rates. “This comes from a study looking at the ten largest commercial customers’ billings, and looking at the past ten years to see if we’re capturing fuel costs like other municipalities. The difference was $1 million if we had increased (over the years) like other municipalities,” said McLean.
The increase will gain some $600,000 for the city.
Commissioners also chose to outsource the Building & Planning department and the cleaning of city hall and NetQuincy, saving approximately $345,000 annually. It will also decrease usage of take-home vehicles and monitor fuel use more closely for a $90,000 savings, increase rates for fines and fees, raising $50,000 to $60,000, and switch the city’s phone system to voice over internet protocol (VOIP) to gain $54,000 annually.
The commission also voted to cut pay for board members by 10% in a split vote. Those voting against it said they wanted to forego pay entirely during the city’s financial crisis. The 10% reduction saves the city $7,850.
Property taxes will increase through a millage increase to recapture $400,000 for the city, commissioners approved in a split vote. The city must now go through a process to do that. The issue will be addressed during budget talks.
“We’re looking at a reduction of $1.4 million in our expense side, and an increase of the same amount on the revenues side. We’re making decisions in this budget year to enter next fiscal year with a maximum of savings,” said McLean. “We’re still going to carry a significant debt into the next fiscal year, but we can retire a large portion of debt during that period. We need to match revenues to expenses. I want to get to where we pay on time. Progress Energy is a significant portion of our debt. We’re behind with OMI. We have a bond payment coming due of $400,000,” said McLean.
McLean said he was setting up a reserve fund to place all tax amounts collected, to ensure payment to the state when due.
No action was taken on a proposal to eliminate and consolidate several city departments. An option to reduce city-paid pension benefits was tabled for collective bargaining.
Much of the debate came over options dealing with employee cuts, reduction in salaries, fewer work hours and employee furloughs. All options will be discussed during the upcoming budget talks.
The only option provided by McLean that wasn’t addressed during the meeting was outsourcing law enforcement to the Gadsden County Sheriff’s Department (GCSD). At a meeting last week, Commissioner Keith Dowdell told the commission that the city could save significant dollars by outsourcing its law enforcement.
“Why not turn (it) over to GCSD? The sheriff said he could do it for less than $1 million. This costs us $2.5 million,” said Dowdell.
A police union representative said in that case the sheriff might decide to pull out officers, which would affect citizens’ safety.
Mayor Andy Gay said at that meeting that a discussion on that topic would need to be in another forum, not in a workshop