The city is staring at a budget deficit later this year that has councilmen considering ways to raise cash and save money.

Speaking at Wednesday night’s special council meeting in the public safety building, Councilman Michael Walter said the city will be $500,000 in debt by November. He also listed a number of ways the city could get money to help with the debt.

Among those are selling Kelly Automotive Park and selling some or all of the city’s parking lots.

Walter was against selling the stadium, acknowledging that it makes more money than it costs to operate.

Councilman Richard Schontz and Mayor Tom Donaldson also were against selling the stadium. Donaldson acknowledged that selling the parking lots would be lucrative, but cautioned the city to think before supporting the motion.

“Everybody has to remember that’s a one-time cash infusion,” he said.

He also said that the financial problem is going to take time to fix.

“It’s nothing that we can control right away because this has got out of hand over the years,” he said.

Walter noted that on the positive side, streets and parks departments are under budget.

Schontz said the city should be able to save around $70,000 by doing its own paving this year.

However, Walter said that a recent audit revealed that 70 percent of total city costs are for +personnel, related to wages and benefits.

“Most of these are contractual matters,” he said. “Not much we can do there.”

The meeting was held at the public safety building because the number of people attending the meeting surpassed the number to be safely accommodated in the city building’s council chamber.

Most of the people were there for the matter of Nick Ban’s demotion, suspension of demotion and retirement as chief of the fire department.