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Fort Wayne City Council votes to shore up Citilink's finances

Citilink bus at downtown station in Fort Wayne
File photo
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89.1 WBOI
Citilink bus at downtown station in Fort Wayne

The Fort Wayne City Council voted last week to shore up the finances of Citilink, the city’s bus service, without raising additional taxes on city residents.

The amended ordinance passed with a vote of 8 to 0, with Councilman Paul Ensley abstaining.

The ordinance provides $500,000 in stopgap funding for the service. This comes just two weeks after the public transportation agency came to council with a $2.5 million budget shortfall.

The vote was part of Tuesday night’s expansive discussion of Mayor Sharon Tucker’s 2025 budget proposal.

The first amendment to the ordinance required the agency to spend down its reserves before coming back to the council for money. A second amendment by new Councilwoman Rohli Booker allowed the agency to hold on to some of those reserves.

While there was disagreement among council members about some of the finer details in the amendment, all seemed focused on a funding problem they felt was largely created in the State House.

In praising the work of Booker and others to get the deal hammered out by the end of the month, Councilman Russ Jehl urged the council and city leadership to focus their attention next on solving the legislative issue

.

Rebecca manages the news at WBOI. She joined the staff in December 2017, and brought with her nearly two decades of experience in print journalism, including 15 years as an award-winning reporter for the Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne.