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TOLEDO, OH -- Mayor Carty Finkbeiner released his 2009 budget for the City of Toledo Saturday night and it shows a $21 million deficit which will not allow for police or fire classes next year.

"What we have here is a $21 million headache,"  said councilman George Sarantou, who is chairman of council's budget committee.

In an effort to balance the budget, Mayor Finkbeiner offered several recommendations which included layoffs, changes in the city's trash pick-up, and asking for belt-tighting with the Toledo Municipal Court..

Between 35 and 45 City of Toledo employees will be indefinitely laid off effective January 1, 2009.   The budget recommedations say no safety personnel will face layoffs.

The budget also calls for the city to go to the "Columbus Plan" for refuse pick up.  That means that trash will not be picked up on the holiday, but rather on the day after the holiday.   It will save the city about $350,000.

The city will go to automated trash pick-up effective September 2009, and will go from a three person crew to one person.

The city will take $2 million from the "rainy day fund".   There is currently has $6.2 million in that fund.  The city will take one-third of that fund to help balance the budget.

The city will ask the Toledo Municipal Court judges to make an additional five percent reduction in their budget for 2009.  They will also ask the Toledo Municipal Clerk to reduce her budget by five perent.    The combine savings will be an estimated $735,000.

The city will demolish 100 fewer homes in 2009.   In 2008, the city demolished 350 homes.

There will be no city vehicle replacement in 2009, and that includes Toledo police cars.

Also, all city pools will be closed next summer with the exception of Detwiler and Savage Park.

Sarantou says hearings on the budget will start Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at One Government Center.

"I am pledging that we will have plenty of hearings on the budget, including going out into the neighborhoods, to get recommendations," he said.

Sarantou says he hopes to have the budget passed by the end of this year.

"We need to start saving money on January 1, 2009.   We must have the budget by end of March 2009, but every month we delay, it will cost us more money.  We need to start saving money immediately," Sarantou said.

The concern among city councilmembers NBC24 spoke to is the lack of a police classes in 2009.  

The city previously planned to hire 33 cadets, but the most recent plan reduced it to 20-22 cadets. Even with the addition of a new class, the department would still have fewer officers next year than its current 639. There are currently 639 sworn officers.  Howver an estimated 30 officers are expected to retire in 2009 and an additional 60 in 2010.  Toledo City Council on November 5 agreed to hire 40 new firefighters in December for next year's ranks rather than the planned 25 in order to save the city money on overtime.

Toledo City Councilman Mike Collins says a new police class is absolutely necessary.

"Right now we have 2.0 officers for every 1,000 people.  That is well below other cities of our size in the state.  We are the lowest in the state of Oho and rank in the bottom five percent of similar sized cities in the United States.  Add that to the fact that over the next two years we will have 100 officers retire.  We must have a new police class,  If we don't have a new class, by November of 2009 we will only have about 610 officers."  he said.

The administration expects lower revenue as well as higher personnel and medical costs.

The city's income tax collections will probably be even lower in 2009 than this year because of increasing unemployment.

The city is still not out of the woods for the 2008 budget.

The current 2008 general fund budget could be as high as $10 million in the red. The mayor plans to save $1 million by shutting down all nonessential gov't business for three days before the end of 2008 and at least four days during 2009.  Finkbeiner also wants to eliminate or postpone millions in capital improvement projects, and possibly order more layoffs. The mayor says wants all non-emergency city departments to stay home on November 26, December 26, and December 31. The move would save about $300,000 for the general operating fund.

However, some of the city of Toledo's unions are promising legal action on Monday to block Finkbeiner's planned three-day gov't shutdown.

NBC24 will have more reaction to the 2009 City of Toledo budget on NBC24 Sunday at 6 & 11, and on NBC24.com 

2009 Toledo Budget Assumptions 

2009 Toledo Proposed Budget 

2009 Toledo Budget Sources & Uses 

Letter from Mayor to Council