The City of Perry had to overcome some obstacles when it came to putting together the fiscal year 2015 budget.

The state needs to certify budgets by the middle of this month so City officials had to work relatively quickly.  As mentioned by several council members and the Mayor at Monday’s meeting, City staff worked well together to make the best of the situation.

“I think the process goes real well, working with Susie and Corey now has been there for a few years and all the department heads are familiar with how it works so I think they’re all cognizant of what’s going on and trying to do their best” says Niebuhr.

That’s City Administrator Butch Niebuhr who says if this type of situation continues he worries that there may be a point where there’s not much left to cut, but personnel.

“You get to a point where there just isn’t a lot more to do because if we have to keep scaling back, what you’re going to get into is shorter hours and less people and we’ve always tried to keep away from doing that.  If we did lose people we tried to do it through attrition, and you’ve noticed that before in the last two years.  We’ve never had to look somebody in the face and tell them we’re taking their job away, so so far so good with that.”

Niebuhr says the only real change residents might notice during the next fiscal year is minor changes to the City’s recycling policy and the slight increase in their levy.