Marietta Clerk of Council Michele Newbanks, left,
Marietta City Council has taken a step to formally direct the mayor to provide a sustainable financial recovery plan to council by May 20.
Council had already discussed giving the mayor, department heads and city administration a deadline for proposing cost-saving plans.
During a joint finance and employee relations committees meeting April 15, Ward 1 Councilman and Finance Committee Chair Michael Scales tasked the mayor, department heads and city administration to come up with a plan for long term sustainable cost savings to bring city revenue in line with expenses.
The cost-savings plans are a result of a performance audit that predicts the city’s general fund will be empty as early as 2025. In March, council proposed cutting staff, merging the Marietta/Belpre Health Department and county health department and switching city income tax collection to a third party vendor thereby reducing the number of city tax department staff as possible ways to save $1.2 million this year in response to the audit.
During the April 15 meeting, Scales suggested the mayor, department heads and city administration have until June 28 to come up with cost-saving plans and said “we’re legislators and apparently we don’t know what’s going on.” At-large Councilwoman Cassidi Shoaf suggested less time, four weeks.
Scales stated they could have until four weeks from Monday and after the meeting, Ward Four Councilwoman Erin O’Neill confirmed that date would be May 20.
Schlicher offered council some cost-savings plans already during an April 11 public meeting on the audit, recommending no staff cuts and stating the city would not open the Marietta Aquatic Center.
The MAC closure elicited a reaction from the community and council, including a petition to keep the MAC open earning more than 3,800 signatures and council issuing a press release imploring Schlicher to reopen the MAC.
During an April 18 council meeting, Schlicher announced the city had reached a plan with the company that manages the MAC to get it reopened for this year.
During a special council meeting Monday night called by Scales, Shoaf and At-Large Councilman Harley Noland, the first reading of Resolution No. 16 (24-25) was conducted. It called for “the mayor of the city of Marietta to provide a sustainable ‘plan of recovery’ concerning the finances of the city of Marietta, Ohio, to this council, on or before Monday, May, 20, 2024.”
Scales, Noland, Ward 2 Councilman Bret Allphin and At-Large Councilman Ben Rutherford attended the meeting. Council President Susan Vessels also attended the meeting but her position on council is nonvoting.
The first reading was conducted but council could take no further action on the resolution because there were not enough members there to suspend the rules and dispense with the second and third readings of the resolution.
City Law Director Paul Bertram said after the meeting that to suspend the rules six council members must be present at a meeting.
According to Bertram, council can conduct a second and third reading of the resolution with four members present, but will only be able to pass the resolution as an emergency resolution, where it takes effect immediately, if there are six council members present and they all approved the resolution. Council can pass the resolution after three readings with five council members present if they approve it, but it would take 30 days to take effect, Bertram said.
There was no council comment nor were there any comments from the few members of the public that attended the special meeting.
The meeting was adjourned after the first reading. Mayor Joshua Schlicher did not attend the meeting but did comment on the resolution after the meeting, stating “we’re already working on a plan.”
Bertram said the resolution is a “formal deadline and request (for the mayor) to provide council with something.”
He said the issue regarding cuts is sustainability. Council wants a solution “that is sustainable,” Bertam said. Depending on what is in the mayor’s proposal, council would vote on it, according to Bertram. He said if there are any positions that will be cut or aspects of sustainability those would likely be issues council would vote on.
No meeting for a second reading of the resolution has been set yet.
The next city council meeting is May 2 at 7:30 p.m. in Room 10 of the Marietta Armory.
Michelle Dillon can be reached at mdillon@newsansentinel.com
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