The city's financial woes dominated the discussion at Tuesday's city council meeting.

Council members were presented with an audit report from 2015 from the Maher Duessel firm.

The news was bleak — the city started the fiscal year with $450,000 in reserve but ended $30,000 in the hole.

The audit showed that the city increased its revenue by 1 percent but its expenditures increased by 4 percent.

The lone bright spot in the report was that the city's pension plan is funded.

Auditor Tim Morgus urged the council to make changes, and make them now.

His report was met with a variety of responses by the council.

“The 1 percent increase in revenue and 4 percent increase in expenditures clarifies what I'm trying to say, that we have to address the areas that are recommended by (these studies),” said Mayor Tom Donaldson, referring to studies done on the city in 2006 and 2012. “They (council members) can argue with me all they want. We have to address the fire department issues.”

The mayor wants to restructure how the department is staffed to save money.

Councilman Richard Schontz agreed with him on the fire department, but said other departments need to play a part, also.

“It's more so the fire department than the other departments, but it's got to be a cooperative effort across the board,” Schontz said.

He added, “We've got to find a way to find $200,000 to $400,000 additional revenue or cuts or combinations to be financially solvent for next year.”

Councilman Michael Walter noted a possible way to earn revenue for the city.

“We need to come up with ways to save money and generate nontax revenue. However that is, I don't know,” he said.

“I mentioned how the city of Warren, Pa., has two ambulances up there, and they have a fire ambulance up there, and it still generates a lot of money for them.”

Also concerning city finances, Police Chief Ron Brown asked council to hire two full-time police officers instead of four part-time police officers, which Brown noted has been in the city's budget for two years.

The police department has 21 employees, two shy of its full capacity at 23. Brown told the council that staffing two full-time officers would cost about $101,000, while hiring four part-time officers would cost about $141,000.

He also said he expects the department to answer about 22,000 calls this year, which would be up substantially from the usual number of calls.

He said, “Right now we could utilize two full-timers better. They'd be ours. I wouldn't have to work around their schedules.”

He added, “Everybody said the city doesn't have money, and I understand that, but this has been budgeted for the last two years.”

After Brown repeated multiple times that it had been budgeted, Councilwoman Kathy Kline responded to him.

“I know you keep saying 'because it's been budgeted,' but we all know you can budget anything you want, but it doesn't mean the money's there,” she said.

After the meeting, Kline said she cares about the city's safety, but she was speaking from a financial viewpoint.

“We just listened to our auditor about the dollars and that we need to absolutely look at everything between now and the end of the year, which he has been telling us that for I can't tell you how many years,” she said.

Donaldson acknowledged the city's financial troubles, but said, “We can do different with fire. We can't do police any different.”

Walter said he liked the idea, but noted that the city is “bleeding money.”

Donaldson also said the city is still in search of a fire chief. He noted he is looking at four candidates.

The fire chief position has been vacant since April 13 when Chief Nick Ban retired.