Junction City manager quits, council gets new look at budget.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

JUNCTION CITY - The City Council voted unanimously Wednesday night to accept the resignation of City Administrator Mike Leighton, then saw a presentation suggesting that an impending city budget shortfall predicted by Leighton and a fired city finance director had been greatly exaggerated.

The council directed Mayor Larry Crowley and City Attorney Russell Poppe to draft a resignation agreement with Leighton, who came to the city from a similar job at a small town in Kansas just 14 months ago. Details will be released once the agreement is executed.

The vote came after a 30-minute closed-door session called to evaluate Leighton's performance - the second such meeting in a month.

In other business at the public session that followed, the council and an audience of about 15 city residents and employees saw a presentation on the city's financial situation by police Chief Ken Hancock.

Crowley said he had asked Hancock to prepare a presentation on the city's past and present budgets.

"There is a deficit, but it's not nearly as great as the $400,000, $300,000 or $200,000 that we'd been told," the mayor said. "It's $100,000 or less."

Hancock said he and other city department heads were shocked this fall when a $421,000 deficit was declared in the city's $1.4 million 2005-06 general fund budget at a department head meeting.

He said that projection and subsequent lower ones by Leighton and former Finance Director Jerri Moore apparently failed to consider that previous Junction City budgets had ended with significant cash carryovers of $1 million or more.

Given that, Hancock said, previously discussed potential cuts to programs such as the library, senior center and the city swimming pool season might prove unnecessary, particularly if the city places a moratorium on nonessential spending through the end of the budget year.

"The projected deficit was based on every department spending every dime of budgeted spending," he said.

While no city officials blamed Leighton directly for the confusion and distress that surrounded the earlier, more dire, predictions, City Councilor Barry Schweigert expressed frustration that the council had not received a report on actual 2004-05 budget expenditures at the end of that budget year, as it had in past years.

And Crowley complained that the city's budget subcommittees, on which various council members serve, did not receive financial data early enough from city staff members to spend the time they usually devote to preparing recommendations to the budget committee and City Council.

City resident Jack Summer blamed the council for still not having actual 2004-05 spending data in hand.

"When are we going to see figures so we know what we're dealing with?" he asked. "We still don't know where we're at. Who's responsible for that, if not you?"

"The people we hire," Crowley said.

Budget committee member and former public works Director Bob Fountain agreed, and commended the council for "a tough decision" to negotiate a resignation agreement with Leighton.

Fountain praised Hancock for his budget presentation, but added, "it came from the wrong person. It should have come from the administrator, and a long time ago."

Leighton, who did not return to the public meeting after the closed-door session, declined comment later Wednesday night, except to say that his resignation was "probably best for both parties."

The council adjourned without authorizing any budget cuts, though Schweigert cautioned against spending all of the city's 2005-06 revenues, rather than continuing to place money in reserve accounts.

Crowley said after the meeting that he is not sure he will recommend an immediate search for a new city administrator once Leighton's resignation is official.

The city may instead want to rely on the leadership of its department heads and save the $100,000-plus it probably would have to pay in salary and benefits for a new administrator. Leighton's salary is $74,000.