State budget cuts lead Bay City officials to consider layoffs in fire department

In what is likely to be a headline repeated all over the state of Michigan, Bay City officials are considering how to eliminate more than a half million dollars from its already gutted budget.

The cuts are needed, officials say, because of cuts to state revenue sharing. The revenue sharing program is funded from state of Michigan funds, but were recently cut in the budget battle that temporarily shut the state down for two hours earlier this month.

Calling the loss of revenue from the state “devastating,” City Manager Robert Belleman said cuts were inevitable. Earlier this year, city commissioners approved a plan that laid-off six of the city’s fire fighters and shuttered one of the fire stations.

One commissioner tells the Bay City Times that cuts to the fire department are inevitable.

But City Commission President Christopher Shannon, 1st Ward, said he believes changes could come from the city’s fire department.

“It’s inevitable,” he said, adding that the majority of the city’s general fund budget is spent on public safety. “You can’t ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the room.”

That news is not sitting well with another city commissioner.

Commissioner Lori Dufresne, 4th Ward, did not support the cuts in June and said she would not support any further cuts to the fire department. She said she has not been made aware that the fire department could be on the chopping block again.

“The Fire Department cannot afford to be cut any smaller than what it is,” she said. “It is a safety issue for the citizens of Bay City.”

Currently, the fire department employs 42 firefighters and five administrators. One of the fire fighters is currently on military leave.

Officials say a spike in crime will likely keep the 57 sworn police officers and four civilian employees of the city’s police department from the budget ax.

The city budgeted for $4.8 million in revenue sharing funds, but the state says they will only get $4.3 million.