Amador County – Ione City Council held a special meeting and workshop Wednesday to discuss a newly found budget deficit, and seek input from employee groups.

City Manager Jeff Butzlaff said the city is in a “world of hurt and we need to take care of it quickly and succinctly.” He said the net General Fund budget was down to about $1.3 million, from $2 million.

The city lost about $500,000 to the state, including about $250,000 in vehicle license fees, the rest from wrongly used taxes that have to be reimbursed to the state. An audit found a larger gap in the General Fund budget and smaller pool of funds.

Auditor Larry Bain said it was “not done intentionally” but the accounting structure was “not normal,” due to the people who put in the software structure. He said it may have been recommended by former City Manager Kim Kerr or the software company to set it up that way.

Butzlaff said “this is a stunning revelation.” The “city already had collapsing” funds and “now we don’t even have a safety net.” He said they don’t have a lot of time to work through the revenue structures, and we need a couple of months to get things in place, to “get us down to about a $1.5 million sustainable general fund budget.”

Mayor David Plank asked how the city has been paying its monthly bills. Bain said the system was set up with 40-50 different accounts and “you have been in essence borrowing from other funds.”

Butzlaff said they are working on a “soft landing or safety net,” retirement incentives, and reorganization of different departments. He said the Public Agency Retirement System “told us today they want to fast-track for us.” They have a “part-time employee retirement,” a partial retirement of 30 percent, which allow keeping city functions in place in some manner. Butzlaff said: “Time is money more now than ever before in the city’s history.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.