Looking for a way to infuse its threadbare budget with cash, Butler could begin hitting up out-of-state workers for a 1 percent Earned Income Tax.

The idea, proposed Tuesday by Councilman Ken Bonus, would impose a 1 percent tax on wages from out-of-state workers who come to work in Butler. Currently the city does not take the tax out of those workers’ wages, said city solicitor James Coulter.

Bonus said Butler’s tax administrator, Berkheimer, has said other municipalities like Cranberry Township have realized significant income from similar moves. The township’s move to impose the nonresident EIT has raised about $100,000 a year, Bonus said. He doesn’t expect the city to realize that kind of windfall, but said it’s worth exploring the measure in hopes of raising additional revenue without higher taxes on residents and property owners.

“I don’t think we will be seeing anything on a level like (Cranberry Township’s),” Bonus said. “But it’s an avenue we haven’t tapped previously.”

Since last year, Councilman Mike Walter has warned that Butler is in dire fiscal straits, but the situation has improved greatly from initial projections. In late September Walter said the city could be $54,000 in debt by November. That’s still dire, but not nearly as bad as the $300,000 deficit projected by an audit report issued in June by the firm Maher Duessel.