Amador County – The Ione City Council last week adopted a budget with a deficit of $200,000 and will try to make more cuts in January to get back to even.

City Clerk Janice Traverso said the council talked about possibly looking at cuts in the employee benefits package, in January, since there are already five employees retiring.

The city finance director submitted a request to take an early retirement, and the city council must hold a special meeting today, that is Monday, Dec. 12, to consider changing criteria for early retirement eligibility. Traverso said originally, criteria required that you had to be employed for 5 years with the city in order to qualify for early retirement through the Public Agency Retirement System.

She said the city administration targeted four employees for early retirement, those being the Ione Police Department clerk, building inspector, maintenance supervisor, and administrative assistant (Traverso’s position).

Finance Director Jane Wright also wanted to take advantage of early retirement through PARS, Traverso said. The council decided to change the criteria for retirement to be a member of the Public Employees Retirement System for a minimum of five years, instead of a city employee for five years. Since they need to make the criteria change, they have to hold a special meeting, set for 5 p.m. Monday, Dec. 12. Traverso said the deadline to get everything into PARS is Dec. 16, so that is why they called the special meeting.

Even with the fifth retirement, City Manager Jeff Butzlaff said Tuesday that the city budget will still be $200,000 in deficit. With employee concessions, furloughs, early retirements and other cuts, $425,000 has been cut so far from the budget, but another $200,000 still must come out.

The city will still have nine employees, Traverso said, and three of the retirees will still have shorter, regular hours. Traverso is still the elected city clerk. She said “there is one year left on my term,” but “I’m not sure how many hours it’s going to entail.” She currently gets $225 a month as a stipend for her clerk duties.

She said Building Inspector Don Myshrall will be coming back two days a week; and the police records clerk will be coming back about three hours a day, to help with record keeping for police department, and to help with receptionist duties for the city administration’s front office.

As far as replacing Finance Director Wright, that is “something the council will have to decide,” Traverso said, adding that Wright “will come back for a couple of months for some projects,” and help prepare things for the new person.

The council also appointed Tony Lavasiti to the Ione Recreation Commission, as recommended by Mayor David Plank.

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