Members of the Butler City Council are lamenting the formidable task they have before them, which is to craft a balanced budget for 2006.

But while theirs is a task not to be envied, it's troubling that council members are not engaged in serious public discussion about seizing opportunities for new sources of income, in addition to what they currently are doing — scaling back budget requests for the new year.

Actually, it was ludicrous for council members to even have made any costly new spending proposals for the new year when councilmen were well aware, going into this latest annual budget-preparation exercise, that the city's coffers still are in a precarious state.

The coffers could end up in even worse shape, depending on how the current contract negotiations with unions representing the police, firefighters and municipal workers eventually are concluded.

Despite the troubling financial prospects for the new year, new costly expenditures, such as a $118,000 highlift and three additional workers for the streets department, were proposed. Those requests were withdrawn at a special meeting Saturday at which about $450,000 of a projected $900,000 deficit was eliminated.

At that meeting, it was noted that building permit fees of about $100,000 tied to the new Butler County Prison are expected to be received in 2006. However, the city should not be in such dire financial circumstances that the fees could be the major difference between balancing the budget or not.

Still, the biggest criticism that can be directed at current council members is that they don't appear to be giving enough attention to revenue-raising recommendations made in August by Resource and Development Management, which was hired by the city to help the municipality avoid state financially distressed status.

A couple of RDM's recommendations, such as installing parking meters on Main Street and increasing the new Emergency Management Services Tax, formerly the occupational-privilege tax, to the maximum amount allowed by law appear to be on the way. However, council members seem to have "buried their heads" in regard to most of the other recommendations that were outlined in a story in the Aug. 28 Butler Eagle.

RDM ideas such as a rental unit inspection program and fee schedule would be beneficial from two perspectives. The money generated would help the city's financial situation but, even more importantly, the inspections could identify serious health and safety problems and result in corrective measures being implemented.

Although city council members have discussed that and other RDM ideas, they have not given those proposals the kind of attention that they have deserved by this time. And, that's not a recipe for overcoming the city's financial woes, or even to break even.

Joe Hohman, RDM president, told the council in August that "to address the problems faced by the city and to eliminate the structural deficit requires creativity and enforcement on the revenue side. It will also require political will to control costs on the expenditure side."

Judging by the situation as it currently exists, city officials are flirting with failure on both fronts.

That does not bode well for 2006 and beyond.