The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

PRESCOTT - Anticipating a drop in city revenues, City Clerk Jill Borup presented the Prescott City Council a proposed budget with cuts to several departments.

Borup told the council recently that the city of Prescott is expected to receive about $5,000 less in revenue in 2013 than in 2012. The amount of revenue is expected to come in at $97,000 for 2013.

To balance the budget, Borup said she cut clerk office supplies, election costs, build- ing and maintenance costs and attorney's fees.

In addition to lost revenue, Borup is also anticipating the purchase of a new computer and copy machine for the city and an increase in insurance, fuel costs, storm drainage, power for the streetlights and yearly city cleanup costs.

The budget won't have room for a new back-ho, she added.

Councilman Steve Heim- bigner said he was concerned the cracks in the street on F Street are getting worse from the large truck traffic. He asked if there was room in the budget to repair some of the cracks.

"We don't have anything to put in," Borup replied.

Borup said she has asked the city crew for monetary figures regarding how much it would cost the city to fix the cracks, but she did not have any numbers yet.

"If we don't fix the cracks we are going to lose the streets," Heimbigner said. "If we can, we should try to keep those commercial streets up if we can."

To completely repair the streets, it will be more expen- sive than fixing cracks, he added.

Councilman Doug Venn suggested looking to hire the county to repair the cracks to save some money. However, he added it's getting late in the year to fix cracks because precipitation that freezes can worsen or counteract repairs in asphalt. He said it would be better to repair cracks in August or September when the weather is dry.

Borup offered that the city could dip into its reserve fund to repair the cracks because there won't be room in the 2013 budget. She said the city has $139,000 available to fix the streets.

The council took the budget home with them to analyze it more closely. It is expected to approve the budget at its next meeting in December.