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Mayor Thompson set to reveal 2013 budget with almost $4 million deficit

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Tuesday night, Mayor Thompson will reveal her much anticipated 2013 budget for the City of Harrisburg. CBS 21 got an early peak of what's inside of it.

The city will be starting 2013 the same way it's ending 2012, with a lot of debt and uncertainty. When the mayor presents her budget for 2013, the city will start out $12.5 million in the hole.

"The 2013 budget is really about managing our finances in a way where our structural deficits are no longer going to climb and we're going to continue to move forward with having sustainable balanced budgets," explained Mayor Linda Thompson.

But that balanced budget will not happen next year. The Mayor's general fund budget for 2013 stands at $56 million, $3.8 million more than the city is expected to bring in.

In addition the city has $8.6 million of debt from this year that will carry over into next. As far as more cuts are concerned, the mayor had this message for city council.

"To make any more cuts would be catastrophic to the taxpayers of this city,” cited Mayor Thompson. “It would cause more chaos and disruption in this city like there has never been before in terms of the kind of services we are mandated to require."

The mayor's budget has no tax increases, but it will increase business and permit fees. The mayor will also ask council to increase parking rates by a dollar and add 88 new parking meters to increase revenue.

"What you need to know is that we are doing business differently,” Mayor Thompson added. “We are no longer going to use convoluted borrowing to address balancing our budget."

The mayor's $12 million deficit assumes that the city's union will give $4 million in concessions. It also assumes the parking garages will be leased at a certain rate and the incinerator will be sold for a certain amount.

If any of that doesn't go as planned, that $12 million could go way up.


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