Corbin may cut Main Street Manager back to part time

Corbin city leaders will vote next week on a trimmed down budget for the upcoming fiscal year that will include a plan to make the town’s Main Street Manager a part time position.

Corbin Mayor Willard McBurney said this week that City Manager Bill Ed Cannon is expected to present the 2010-11 fiscal year budget to the Board of Commissioners Monday, and with it the recommendation for the Main Street Program.

"We’ve asked all of our departments to cut back, so it is affecting all of them," McBurney said. "We just feel like it is the fiscally responsible thing to do."

For the past several years, Corbin leaders have demanded reductions in spending of up to 10 percent nearly across the board from city departments. McBurney said the Main Street Program had been exempt from those reductions partly because the effort was so new. Corbin started its Main Street revitalization program in January 2007.

Corbin Main Street Manager Sharae Myers said Tuesday that she was notified last week her job was being cut back to 15 hours a week. Along with the reduction will be a loss of benefits like health insurance.

"It was just presented to me as a budgetary issue. It is something that really was very short and quick notice to me," Myers said. "I can see a program that isn’t producing being cut back, but this is a program that has excelled and exceeded most people’s expectations in a short period of time … We have made incredible improvements and we still haven’t really scratched the surface of a lot of issues that need to be addressed."

Myers is the only Main Street Manager the city has ever employed. She started her job in January 2007 after being selected by a committee consisting of representatives from the city, local Chamber of Commerce, Tourism Commission and other area civic and business leaders.

Shortly after being hired, she began an 18-month training program to become certified as a Main Street Manager. Cities typically start Main Street programs in order to take advantage of various grants administered by the Kentucky Heritage Council, and others, to help pay for physical improvements to unsightly and stagnant central business districts. Myers said doing the research and writing to secure those grants is a time-consuming process.

She would like for the city to explore other options for funding a full-time Main Street program, including making it a non-profit organization.

"You can’t do what I’ve been doing on a part-time basis; on 15 hours a week," she said. "I have made a commitment to this program … this is more than just a paycheck to me."

McBurney said the suggestion to cut back on Main Street funding would likely win the approval of commissioners. It would save the city around $16,000 in just salary alone, not including the cost of benefits and other expenses, which equal close to $11,000.
For the current fiscal year, the Main Street program was budgeted $90,041. In the 2008-09 fiscal year, the city actually spent $129,035 on the program. Myers salary accounts for $31,811 of the amount budgeted for this year.

Myers said she has talked to some downtown merchants who will be disappointed by the move. She said that she is weighing her options regarding whether she will remain as Main Street Manager long term.

McBurney said the budgetary cuts represent a downturn in tax collections, particularly from the town’s municipal insurance tax.

"People are licensing boats and jet skis and expensive items because of the economy the way it is," he said. "We see the trend here and have determined we need to take action now to make sure we are running things as efficiently as we can. The City Manager has determined the Main Street Manager is a non-essential job so that’s one of the areas we are looking at to cut back."

He added he didn’t want residents to be concerned the cuts would mean a loss of basic services like police and fire protection, or garbage pickup.

"We will have police on the streets and firemen putting out fires. Garbage will be picked up on time. We don’t want people to worry about that. We are not cutting services."

Commissioners will vote on a first reading of the budget at their regular monthly meeting Monday at 5:00 p.m. at City Hall. It must win the approval of the Commission twice to be enacted. The new budget would take effect July 1.