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Citilink asks Fort Wayne City Council for help with $2.5 million budget shortfall

Citilink bus at downtown station in Fort Wayne
Tony Sandleben
/
89.1 WBOI
Citilink bus at downtown station in Fort Wayne

Citilink is requesting Fort Wayne’s City Council help with a $2.5 million budget shortfall.

The organization, which operates Fort Wayne’s public transit system, said it needed to increase how much money it takes from the city’s property tax fund, a process called a tax levy, by more than 40% to overcome the shortfall. Fort Wayne City Councilman Geoff Paddock, D-5th, said that took some members of council by surprise.

“The intricacies of adjusting a tax levy are things we don’t often do in local government, and so, I suppose to some extent it did take all of us by surprise,” Paddock said.

Citilink formally made this request in the midst of the council’s 2025 city budget approval process. The request would require the council to pull money from the budgets of 37 different government agencies and departments, according to Councilman Russ Jehl, R-2nd. Jehl said he’s not sure that’s something council can do.

“I think legally for the City of Fort Wayne, I don’t even think I’m legally allowed to pass the Citilink budget and then turn around and pass the city budget without making substantial cuts,” Jehl said.

Pulling from other department budgets could turn the current budget proposal into an unbalanced one, something council cannot legally pass. Both Jehl and Paddock said the council needs more time to work with Citilink to find a solution that will not impact the city so heavily.

“The best way out of this really is cooperation, rather than just steamrolling and trying to force a really complicated proposal (at the) last minute,” Jehl said.

The city council only has until the end of October to pass Fort Wayne’s 2025 budget. Since Citilink’s request would impact so many other municipal budgets, Jehl and Paddock said passing the proposal without more information would be risky.

Citilink CEO and General Manager John Metzinger said he’s met with members of Council since June and made them aware of what the proposal might look like.

“At that time we were speaking about the possibility of a direct contribution from the city just as other great cities in the State of Indiana have done,” Metzinger said.

Metzinger said Citilink got into this financial position because of costs from collective bargaining, inflation costs and flat state revenue in recent years.

Over the last 11 years, Citilink has had less than 1% growth in revenue but a 54% increase in costs.

Both Paddock and Metzinger said the state should step up to help.

“I would not hesitate to ask some of our friends who are serving in the state legislature, both Democratic and Republican friends, to step up to the plate here and help us solve this problem,” Paddock said.

State help would not come until it gets approved by the Indiana General Assembly. That body is not in session again until January.

The Fort Wayne City Council has until the end of October to decide what to do about Citilink.

Tony Sandleben joined the WBOI News team in September of 2022.