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Tempers flare in Ashland budget meetings Tuesday Apr 25, 2017 at 7:20 PM By Julie Akins for the Mail Tribune The city of Ashland’s budget crunchers are dealing with not only the hurdle of how to cover an increase in pension retirement fund costs, but with the budgeting process itself. The Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) issue is fairly straight forward: The fund was supposed to get a return of 7.5 percent, but it’s lagged behind for years, creating an increase of $885 million in what Oregon governments will need to pay over the next two years to cover pensions of retired workers. Ashland’s share is $1.875 million in PERS adjustments to cover retirees. It’s something the city has to cope with while trying to fund its other initiatives. In trying to figure out ways to generate money to pay the bills and create the programs the Ashland City Council would want, Mayor John Stromberg created a process of showing possible revenue streams and priorities previously discussed. As he presented the options in a two-day budget hearing Wednesday and Thursday, some council members grew testy and the mayor threatened to shut the whole thing down and start over in a testy exchange with Councilor Greg Lemhouse. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not getting the information I need through this process," said Lemhouse. “I feel like the staff is competent, but we’re not getting what we need.” Stromberg retorted, “I can just go home. I’ve put a lot of work into this and if you think I’m trying to control the process then I don’t need to waste my time. Do you want to go forward or not?” Councilor Dennis Slattery jumped in, suggesting a regrouping. “I think we need to take a breath. This doesn’t mean anyone did anything wrong.” Several councilors objected to the revenue generation and funding possibilities in front of them, including Councilor Traci Darrow, who described herself as “rebelling against the process.” Interim Finance Director Bev Adams suggested most of the possible revenue generation possibilities had limits due to the restricted nature of certain funds and uncertainty of others. “We could budget the marijuana tax, but we don’t know how much it will be and it won’t come in until September," Adams noted. "We’ve budgeted it at $55,000 per year, but it could be more. We just don’t know.” Councilors heard from Public Works Director Mike Faught that there is some $400,000 dollars available from increased parking fees and City Administrator John Karns chimed in that there is about the same amount of money in ambulance fees. The two pockets of money had not been discussed. “I feel like I’m flying blind,” said Lemhouse of the budget. The Citizens Budget Committee has also criticized the budgeting process as not inclusive enough for them because they had not been consulted sooner and have not felt a part of the process. Budget Committee Chair Dave Runkel wrote an open letter critical of how the city’s two-year budget is being created. The mayor and council said that policy is decided by the council, but that citizens were to advise and suggest priorities. Among the issues raised by the committee was the unilateral decision by the council to approve five new police officers at a cost of $560,000 dollars with an initial suggestion of raising utility fees by $4.75 per month to residential users. At its last business meeting, the council backed off the funding mechanism, but voted to hire the officers. The Citizens Budget Committee and City Council will meet again in May on the budget. The briefly embattled mayor ended the budget hearings applauding the openness of the process. “I think this has been good," he said. "We now have a clearer sense of priorities and a greater level of participation to work with.” — Email Ashland freelance writer Julie Akins at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/@julieakins.