Agencies say gas prices putting budgets in a bind

By Doug Sword

The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS (March 25, 2000) -- City officials are scurrying for ways to cut costs in light of a new estimate that skyrocketing gasoline prices will squeeze police and other budgets by $1.3 million.

The brunt will fall on the Indianapolis Police Department, whose cruisers will burn 1.5 million gallons of gas -- and an extra $760,000 -- in 2000. The city Department of Public Works, which plows streets and collects garbage, expects to go over budget by $310,000.

"What we're asking everybody to do is go back through their budget" to find money that can be shifted into accounts to pay for gasoline, said Chief Deputy Mayor Michael O'Connor.

For instance, it looks as though the city won't need all of the $4.4 million budgeted for snow removal, since only $1.7 million has been spent so far this year, he said.

Considering that retail gasoline prices have jumped an average of 57 cents a gallon nationwide in the past year, the budget situation could have been worse, said Indianapolis Fleet Services administrator Marc Knight. Fleet Services buys and distributes about 4 million gallons of fuel a year, mainly to city and county vehicles.

"We're not in that bad of shape right now because in preparation for Y2K we topped off every tank in the city," he said.

While city and county agencies are projecting big budget overruns by the end of the year, no one is over budget yet, partly because of the savings reaped by getting ready for those Jan. 1, 2000, computer crashes that never occurred.

Preparation at city fleet services involved topping off the 170,000-gallon capacity of underground and surface tanks, along with the gas tanks of local government's 2,300 vehicles. Gasoline was about 25 cents a gallon cheaper then, and December's heavy purchases saved the city and county a bundle as prices rose in January, February and early March, Knight said.

But the city is projecting the problem will get worse. The budget called for gas to cost the city 84 cents a gallon this year. Keep in mind that, unlike the rest of us, the city does not have to pay the more than 40 cents per gallon of gas and sales taxes. The new forecast calls for the city's costs to rise to $1.35 a gallon.

Currently, Fleet Services is charging $1.11 a gallon at its pumps, so the forecast assumes gas prices will continue to rise throughout the year, which might not happen.

http://www.starnews.com/news/citystate/2000/mar/0325st_fuel.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 27, 2000