Much was discussed, but no action on city finances was taken Thursday at the Butler City Council meeting.

Council members mulled over and debated ideas on how to generate revenue and to cut costs for the city’s 2016 budget.

However, most of the ideas, if acted upon, would not have an effect on the city until 2017.

“Everything we’ve been talking about is not going to do a doggone thing to help us the rest of the year,” said Mayor Tom Donaldson during the meeting at the city building.

The 2016 budget is close to $8.7 million, and while statistics were not available on how much had been spent so far this year, Councilman Michael Walter estimated that the city would run out of money by the middle of November.

After the meeting, Donaldson said that if the city runs out of money, it could either take out a state loan or a tax anticipation loan. He said neither was a good option.

“If you take the tax anticipation early for next year this year, you’re going to run out of money in October next year,” he said.

The fire department was the focus of ways to cut costs. Donaldson suggested for the firefighters to switch from four four-man shifts to five three-man shifts to save money.

“If I call off, why should I have someone get overtime to sit in my place?” he asked.

The firefighters’ union, IAFF Local 114, is up for a collective bargaining agreement next year with the city.

Walter and Councilman Kathy Kline want to wait until then to discuss that topic, but Donaldson said he wanted Kline, who is director of public safety, to write a letter to the union about the issue of a three-man minimum.

Donaldson said he wanted a “memorandum of understanding” with the fire department before the new agreement for a switch to the three-man minimum.

But Kline said that the three-man minimum would cost more money because the four free hours each firefighter works during the four-man shifts would be nonexistent, and also because the firefighters’ hours would increase from 42 to 56 per week.

The idea of merging fire departments was brought up. Donaldson mentioned the possibility of merging the department with Butler Township Fire District, but Kline said that idea already had been rejected by the Butler Township Fire District.

Walter brought up the idea of a regional police department, which would merge the departments of Butler and Butler Township to save on administrative costs.

Resident Bill Criley, who attended the meeting, said that township officers’ benefits are greater than those of city police officers, and those higher benefits may offset the money saved in administrative costs.

Donaldson said, “The problem with anybody merging with us is nobody wants to merge with a broke community.”

Other ideas to generate revenue included putting parking kiosks on Main Street and merging the fire department with Butler Ambulance.

Walter said a conservative estimate is that the kiosks could generate at least $100,000 per year for the city.

“We’d start generating revenue from the word ‘Go,’” he said.

However, to do so, the city would either have to use old meters for the first year to generate revenue to buy the kiosks or to borrow money for the kiosks. Councilman Richard Schontz said he wasn’t sure if they had enough meters to put into place, and Walter didn’t like the idea of putting in meters only to take them out a year later.

“I don’t like the idea of borrowing money to do this, however we don’t have the money now to do it,” Walter said.

He also said there still would be two-hour free parking.

City parking manager Jim Chiprean noted that the city gained $256,866 from parking fines in 2015, though it was unclear how much of that was from Main Street. He also said the parking change wouldn’t be done until early 2017.

Schontz was against the two-hour free parking coinciding with the kiosk idea.

“If you’re going to make the first two hours free, you’re not going to generate enough revenue to make a difference,” he said.

Criley agreed, and suggested one-hour free parking.

Walter mentioned a possible merger of the fire department and Butler Ambulance. Donaldson said before the city did that it would need to look into the potential costs from uninsured people being treated by Butler Ambulance.

Donaldson and Schontz both agreed that personnel changes were the best way to save money.

“The issue is where we can cut costs,” Donaldson said.

After the meeting, Donaldson reiterated his stance on the fire department.

“It comes back to: We continue to run from the subject of the fire department,” he said. “It could have been saving money.”

Kline estimated after the meeting that the fire department was $150,000 under its budget so far this year.

“With us not having a fire chief, and I had a captain who retired, those are dollars that are saved,” she said.

City solicitor Jim Coulter gave his opinion on the city’s finances, saying, “I believe you can’t operate the police department in a less expensive manner, can’t operate the parks department in a less expensive manner, and the fire department long-term, I don’t think is something you’re going to be able to sustain.”