With one-twelfth of the fiscal year already on the books, the city of Argo continues to search for the least painful way to balance their budget. The council met Tuesday for the latest in a series of hearings intended to develop and approve a budget for the now-current fiscal year.

During recent hearings, the city found savings by not rehiring the court clerk and a police officer, saving nearly $60,000 of what they believed to be a $100,000 deficit. The police department agreed to an additional $12,456 reduction in retirement payments for police officers.

The fire department, however, provided a challenge for the council—according to fire chief Mike Platts, the budget is trimmed as low as it can be to maintain services currently in place and avoid jeopardizing grant money.

But despite the need, the numbers remain the same.   

“We can plead our cases all we want, but the ultimate thing is that we don’t have the money to pay these bills,” Mayor Paul Jennings said. “I don’t see how we can make the money stretch far enough to make everyone happy.”  

While the discussion began with an 18 percent cut to the fire department salaries to compensate for personnel losses in other departments, an across-the-board percentage cut in salaries was an ongoing theme to “share the pain” between all departments.

However, the method and rate at which to cut was a point of disagreement.

Two options seemed to emerge during the course of the meeting.

The first option was a percentage cut to everyone in the town’s employ — save for city clerk Andrea Jennings and community service worker Tommy Suggs. The two would be exempted from the cut, due to the fact that they have assumed a significantly larger workload due to the lay-off of the court clerk. The plan was a popular one, but reservations existed about whether or not exempting two employees would be legal.

A second option consisted of filling the vacated court clerk and police officer position, then imposing an across-the-board percentage cut high enough to achieve the necessary savings.

Members of the board also spoke out against a proposed $200 per month reduction for all members of the board, including the mayor, but agreed that they would take their share of any across-the-board cuts imposed.  

The percentage cuts ranged anywhere from 6 to 29 percent, depending on a variety of different circumstances taken into account. But an accurate number was never reached, due to one simple question with a complicated answer — How much do we actually need to cut?

Initially, the council started making strides toward rectifying a $100,000 shortfall. However, as the work session went on, the numbers fluctuated from $120,000 to $216,941, with a final figure never agreed upon. 

“We’ve got a lot of stuff jumbled up and flying around, so I suggest that everyone start out with the clerk, have them print out another copy of the fire, the police, everything, so they’re not written on, and start your own numbers again,” Jennings said. “And everyone needs to do it. That way, we’re not just one of us doing it and trying to tell everyone what we think. Everyone needs to look at this and see what they come up with.”