The Portage City Council adopted the city’s 2026 budget, but it wasn’t the same as the one introduced earlier this month.
The city had advertised a $56.5 million budget. When it was up for first reading, Clerk-treasurer Liz Modesto called it the tightest budget she had ever seen, including during her 24 years on the council.
Last week, the state required the city to cut the proposed budget even more.
“We found out we had three days to make a couple million more in cuts,” Mayor Austin Bonta said.
That included cutting close to $4.1 million, Modesto said. “All the department heads stepped up to the plate and told us where we could cut.”
The cuts involved were $2.6 million in the general fund, $300,000 in the motor vehicle highway fund, which supports paving and street department operations, and $191,000 for parks.
That meant shrinking the money available for paving from about $1 million to less than $700,000. “We’re doing more paving around, but we’re going to have to move money around to do that,” Bonta said.
“Are we able to afford this budget as it currently stands?” Councilman Ferdinand Alvarez asked Modesto, as he does every year.
“It is a fundable budget. It is not a sustainable budget,” she said. Heading into 2028, the city will have about $2 million less because of SEA 1, she said.
Bonta outlined some deals made to cut the budget.
Leaf trucks were always owned by the utilities department but operated by the street department. Next year, utilities is taking it over and buying three new trucks. The existing trucks require a three-person crew, while the driver can handle all the work with the new type of truck, Bonta said.
Streets and sanitation didn’t have enough to pay its NIPSCO bill, so some of the cost was shifted to the utilities department.
Given constraints and cuts, Bonta doesn’t want to have to come back to the council to shift money around as often as in the past. “We have to watch where the funds are in real time,” he said.
“We’re going to have to cut more for 2027 in addition to being ambitious in how we generate new revenue,” he added.
Fire Chief Chris Crail and his administration received praise for boosting the fire department’s collection rate for ambulance services by getting into more insurance networks. Previously, the collection rate was about 28%. “We were very surprised,” Modesto said, with the improvement.
Parks facilities like the new pickleball court and the ice rink going in at the open-air pavilion north of U.S. 12 will generate revenue for the parks department to help it become self-sufficient over time, Bonta said.
The budget passed unanimously. The salary ordinance, however, didn’t.
Democrats Collin Czilli, Ferdinand Alvarez and Gina Giese-Hurst voted for it while Republicans Victoria Vasquez, Penny Ambler and Melissa Weidenbach voted against it. Republican Bob Parnell was absent.
That left Bonta, a Republican, to cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the ordinance.
Vasquez had asked about separating the legal department for a separate vote, possibly voting line by line for each department.
But voting separately would be “extraordinarily inappropriate,” Bonta said.
“We just passed the budget, which includes these,” attorney Scott McClure said.
“That’s why salary ordinance is passed after the budget,” Bonta said.
The council recently voted to create a general counsel position to be filled by Dan Bartnicki, who will become the highest-paid city employee. Instead of using private attorneys, the city will have an attorney on staff to answer questions more quickly and do more work than the private attorneys do for less money, Bonta had explained when introducing the idea.
Bartnicki, who hasn’t officially been hired yet, has said he is taking a big pay cut from his federal job to work for the city.
Bonta said he wanted discussion of the salary ordinance to focus on generalities, not individuals.
Human Resources Director Lynn Gralik said she has been reviewing job descriptions and responsibilities to try to create more equity among employees in similar roles. A wage consultant in Lafayette was hired to offer advice, comparing Portage to similar cities.
A formal wage study would cost tens of thousands of dollars, Bonta said.
With so many wages negotiated by labor unions, it might take time to bring equity in the city, with some employees having wages boosted to catch up, and others put on hold to allow fellow workers time to reach the same level.
Bonta said achieving equity and paying competitive wages is important so the city will be able to retain and hire employees in the future.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
