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New Petersburg leadership aims to get city out of financial crisis

Posted at 12:12 AM, Jan 11, 2017
and last updated 2017-01-11 00:13:42-05

PETERSBURG, Va. -- Petersburg's new city council heard budget recommendations Tuesday night from the management team recently hired to the get the city out of its financial crisis.

Under the budget amendments presented by The Robert Bobb Group Tuesday night, no job cuts were proposed.

CBS 6 spoke with Robert Bobb after the presentation and he said although no jobs were cut; around 200 jobs could be impacted in the 2018 budget.

In budget amendments, The Robert Bobb Group proposed restoring the 10% pay cut to police, fire, and emergency personnel.

Those changes would go into effect on April 7, 2017.

"Repairing the damage from the loss of experience from the employees who have left based on the pay cuts will take years to repair, and its leaving the fire department with a lot of inexperienced employees making very profound lifesaving decisions," said Scott Spencer with the Firefighter's Union.

Bobb said the City of Petersburg has lost a number of employees to other jurisdictions and they have had to make up the staffing for those positions by paying overtime.

He added that the City has approved budgets in the past that have not been balanced and that was going to be a main focus.

"We are balancing the 2017 budget through a series of reductions and expenses and some revenues," said Bobb. "It doesn't mean the City is out of the water because it still has a significant deficit."

City Council is set to vote on the amendments next week.

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