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Newark Mayor Bob Diebold

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Much to several Finance Committee members’ chagrin, Newark Mayor Bob Diebold did not present the 2010 budget to the committee Monday night.

Mayor Diebold says the budget was done last week, however while double-checking figures Monday, noticed discrepancies.

“We had to go back in and pull the budget apart to see which departments were affected and we got it sorted out.”

Diebold says in good times they can have a budget in a week, but it takes longer with a rocky economy.

“In rough times, when you have removal of personnel and cuts of services, equipment, supplies, etc., there are consequences in each of those decisions. We had to try and spread it out across the city evenly and in doing so, in trying to be thorough, we had replicated some of the cuts.”

Diebold says there will be no furloughs, but there will be layoffs.


Diebold says he takes the blame in not getting the budget to the Finance Committee when he said he would.

“Some of the communication between my office and the Auditor’s office was my fault, where I sent them information and I thought I had plugged it in and they had plugged it in also, so that was kind of my fault.

Diebold says he will have the finalized budget done by the end of the week.