Last week, Burns Harbor Town Council member Mike Perrine saw the glass half empty, warning that the town may have to cut services if it doesn’t get more money for 2011.

Monday, council president Jim McGee said there’s no reason to panic.

“It’s not gloom and doom,” he explained at a 2011 budget workshop. “We can work through this. It will be tight but we don’t have a department head that won’t work through this.”

Perrine didn’t attend yesterday afternoon’s workshop; neither did councilman Louis Bain. So McGee and members Toni Biancardi and Cliff Fleming tossed out some options and will meet publicly Friday at 7:30 a.m. to discuss them in more detail.

Department heads were asked to be prepared with budgets that show both fixed costs that can’t be avoided like wages, and optional discretionary spending that could be cut.

Council members also will investigate various ways to raise additional money with no option yet favored:

•Assess residents/property owners individual user fees to cover the annual cost to maintain fire hydrants ($60,000) or to provide garbage collection ($65,000). Those costs currently are funded with town property taxes although clerk-treasurer Jane Jordan said the state is pushing local governments to impose such fees to generate revenue.

•Research whether the town could be allowed to collect more in property taxes next year based on the past three years’ growth, known as an excess levy appeal. The town’s population has risen an estimated 25 percent since the 2000 census.

•Ask whether a Northwest Indiana legislator could sponsor a bill boosting the town’s allowable tax levy to where it would have been was it not drastically cut in 2001 following the Bethlehem Steel bankruptcy that blocked more than 80 percent of town property taxes from being collected.

Jordan said there’s a new state law that won’t help Burns Harbor now but was prompted by its 2001 tax crisis. The law allows a taxing unit to recoup half its previous year’s levy should a similar tax loss occur.

McGee said he doesn’t favor user fees. Biancardi said collecting them could be problematic because not everyone gets a sewer bill to add monthly hydrant or garbage fees for payment.

She said it would be less cost to residents if an excess levy appeal is allowed rather than resorting to a user fee. Fleming said the town needs to get creative or start chopping.

As of Monday the submitted 2011 budgets are $600,000 above projected revenue, especially with the Park Board requesting $100,000 more than the $75,000 it will raise this year. Park director Kim Burton said she couldn’t speak for her board and the council agreed to set a meeting with park officials.

In 2011 the annual sewer-bond payment will be $682,833. Currently cumulative and rainy day funds are being tapped to cover the full payment but those back-up funds are being drawn down and can’t be replenished fast enough.

The bond payment has to be made so something else will have to give; such payments previously were automatically outside the tax levy but today they have to be fully accounted for within town budgets.

Several times Biancardi said the council needs to make a policy decision whether it will cut 2011 budget requests or seek additional funds. Said Fleming, “I want us to find the best way, not the easiest way.”

Town marshal Jerry Price said department heads know there’s a money problem, but every time a new home is built that creates more responsibility for departments. Price said the main reason his next year’s budget would increase is to hire a badly needed sixth full-time police officer.

Fire chief Bill Arney said, “I’ve been playing crunch time with the (2010) budget already but who knows about next year; don’t think I’ve got a lot of fluff in mine. Unfortunately, I don’t have any control over insurance or the water bill.”

General maintenance superintendent Randy Skalku said he can cut part-time hours next year but as town vehicles age, he’ll need more for tires and repair parts and already deferred road paving will need to get done at some point.

Burton said the Park Department has the new Bolinger Park to maintain, and utility/insurance costs continue to rise.

Price said it’s not realistic to think town departments can provide equal or better service to residents using less money, and it’s better for departments to be pro-active rather than to play catch-up.

McGee said the town is facing some tough decisions, but he doesn’t want anyone blowing the situation out of proportion. “We’ve got a little rough time here, but we’re not going (back) to 2001.”

That year’s council did what had to be done, McGee added, and so will this one. “Look what we’ve come through. Look what we’ve built.”