Youngstown trustees approve $1.525 million budget

Budget reflects spending cuts, new grant funding

By Terry Duffy

Editor-in-Chief

The Village of Youngstown provided a detailed review of its $1,525,479.02 budget draft for 2024-25 Monday before a small crowd in the Red Brick Village Center boardroom.

“I’d like to publicly acknowledge the time that was put into this,” Mayor Rob Reisman said. “We went back and extrapolated everything, took things apart and put it back together again. I know there was a ton of hours put into it. Hopefully, we’ll get through it.”

Reisman went on to note the assistance from trustees, and particularly Deputy Mayor Rick Stortecky and Clerk-Treasurer Amy Beaudreau, for their work in preparing the plan.

Beaudreau continued with a further review of each account, line by line. By the numbers, under general expenses, are the following: contingency, $114,330.06; general government support, S316,510.18; public safety, $214,549; public health, $2,614.04; transportation, $251,556; economic assistance and opportunity, $0; culture and recreation, $157,304.81; home and community services, $183,050; and employee benefits, $285,564.93.

Broken down further are the following: $17,989 under board of trustees, which shows $5,656 each in salary to the three members, plus $1,000 in expenses; $15,549 for the office of mayor, which includes $7,498 for Reisman’s salary; $6,151 for Stortecky; plus $1,900 in related contractual expenses for the two.

By department, audit, $8,000; clerk-treasurer, $79,090.96; budget, $100; assessment, $2,050; deputy clerk treasurer, $17,550; law, $14,000; engineer, $6,000; village election, $2,000; Village Center, $50,250; garage (DPW), $56,631.22; public safety, $214,549, which includes police, $80,230, and fire protection, $124,419; public health, $2,614.04; transportation (DPW and related expenses), $251,556; economic assistance and opportunity, $0; culture and recreation (which includes parks and playgrounds, south dock special recreation facility; youth program/teen center; the library, village celebrations and aging), $157.304.81; home and community services (including such accounts as village zoning and planning, storm sewers; garbage/refuse services; tree maintenance and natural resources, north dock), $183,050; and employee benefits (including state retirement, Social Security, workmen’s compensation, unemployment and disability expenses, hospitalization and other expenses), $285,564.93.

In the board’s review of the plan, Trustee Kristel Stevens questioned a more than $95,000 expense increase from 2023-24 in the contingency budget. “How did that figure come about?”

In response, Beaudreau explained the budget reflected spending input by new DPW Superintendent Greg Quarantillo.

“The superintendent had not done a budget before, so the draft was kind of a guess, and the second, which was presented tonight, was him in discussions with Rick and myself to have a realistic number,” she said. “In that, we discovered that the expenses from last year (are) as realistic as the expenses from this year would be. So, that brought a lot of (department spending items) down.”

Quarantillo said, “When I submitted my expense budget for this year, there were a few things that were ‘wish list’ items. We pulled a lot of that out for this year, put that on the back burner for down the road.”

Beaudreau said last year’s contingency figure of $5,900 was “grossly under budget” compared to the current $114,330.06. “Our revenues have gone up from last year and our expenses have gone down.”

Stortecky said, “We slashed a lot of expenses. Some of it was payroll, some of it was equipment, some things … we moved. So, it was a combination of all those factors.”

Reisman said the village was able to include a number of grant monies that factored into the budgeting process.

“They’ve done a good job,” village resident Henry Sloma said in the limited resident’s comment section that followed.

The “$0 balance” budget went on to be approved by village trustees.