City of Peru freezes budget, salaries

PERU - Employees and elected officials of the city of Peru will not receive a salary increase for 2010.

Clerk/treasurer Jackie Gray said the Peru Common Council passed on Monday an ordinance setting the employee salaries at the same level as 2009.

She said the salary ordinance for elected officials will be considered by the council at the September meeting.

Peru Mayor Jim Walker said employees received a 3 percent pay raise this year.

"This is the first year that [Local Option Income Tax] replaced a lot of property tax revenues," he said. "The exact numbers are not known."

Walker said the employees were understanding and that Peru has not been forced to layoff workers like other communities.

"We were hit hard by the 2 percent circuit breaker," Gray said of the limits placed on property taxes by the Legislature.

Gray said Miami County adopted a 1.25 percent LOIT, which helped cover the shortfall in revenues this year.

A portion of the LOIT, .25 percent, funds operations of the Peru Police Department.

"We're working on the same budget next year," she said. "The budget was frozen across the board."

Walker said the projections are that Peru will lose $1 million in revenues by 2012.

"We have three years to get to that number," he said. "It's not about 2010, it's looking three years down the road."