Butler City Council has at least $206,000 worth of tough decisions to make as the council works to assemble a 2005 budget. That is the deficit contained in a draft of a spending package for next year that was presented to the council on Oct. 14.

Councilman Joseph Bratkovich, city finance director, said there would be a balanced-budget proposal by the time of the budget's scheduled first reading on Nov. 23. There can be no doubt that the work toward achieving budget balance will be a source of great uneasiness in city operations in coming weeks as the council presumably puts each department under the fiscal microscope more intensely than ever before.

At least that is what should happen.

The result of the ongoing budget crisis could conceivably include a higher real estate tax next year for city property owners, who currently pay 30 mills for general purposes and 4 mills for debt service. The 30-mill figure is 5 mills above what the Third-Class Cities Code allows - a result of court approval received in the 1990s. However, the council apparently has a window for additional real estate revenue by upping the city's debt service - certainly not palatable for financially strapped residents, but a more sensible option than for the city to opt for state fiscally distressed status, where much local control and decision making would be lost.

Jim Coulter, city solicitor, is pessimistic about the city's chances for obtaining court approval for additional general-purpose tax revenue, but the day might come when the city government might have to again test those waters. Obtaining additional tax revenue on the general-purpose side would seem to be palatable from a flexibility-of-use standpoint, as compared with money borrowed for a specific project or purpose, such as for street repairs.

The best way for the council to gauge the court's feelings on higher taxes is simply to go to court with a specific request backed up by detailed data and see how the proposal is greeted - and react in accordance with whatever the court decrees. The city cannot embrace a timid attitude in regard to any specific approach to solving the operating funds shortage - a shortage that promises to grow markedly in coming years, if it isn't attacked correctly this year.

One possible fiscal-rescue option might involve a small general-purpose tax increase combined with a small increase in the debt service millage, but whatever approach is pursued is for elected city officials to decide.

If a higher-real-estate-tax option is considered in any form, another important matter should be plugged into the equation. That is, whatever amount is sought through higher taxes should be balanced with an equal amount of savings from budget cuts within the various government departments.

Judging from the current situation, concessions from city employees or further reductions in staffing appear to be in the city's future. Solving the fiscal crisis must not be thrust only upon property owners.

The city cannot be allowed to reach the point where the municipality fails to meet payrolls on time or is unable to pay for necessary supplies and services without incurring late-payment charges.

The kind of tough budget scrutiny that is unavoidable for 2005 actually should have begun in earnest three years ago when the city began using its state liquid fuels fund allocation for Streets Department employee salaries, instead of for improvement projects. From the start, that situation should have been the tip-off about bigger budget problems yet to come.

But there was a vision of the impending financial doom as long as eight years ago. Bratkovich has said a number of times that he and other council members were aware back then that Butler was on its way toward the financial condition in which it currently is mired.

Yet, nothing was done to avert the crisis.

The $206,000 challenge facing the city might be regarded as the "good old days" if the city's fiscal physicians don't prescribe the right dose of medicine in 2005 to their seriously ill patient.

- J.R.K.