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Three significant Dunkirk Department of Public Works budget lines are running in the red, according to department head Randy Woodbury.
DPW's director began his most recent Common Council Finance Committee report with a shard of sunshine. The department is going to be able to use Consolidated Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS) funding to pay for a badly needed bucket loader truck.
Woodbury followed that news by blotting out the sky with more of Dunkirk's financial storm clouds.
"We are in the red on three lines," he stated.
The first line involves fixing broken infrastructure. "We don't have enough money right now to fix water main breaks or hydrants," Woodbury said.
He wants a transfer from PFAS settlement money to fund that line for now. Woodbury needs a council resolution to get that, and asked for one.
The DPW budget line to fund broken streetlights is also maxed out. Woodbury noted that the city has had to foot the bill on fixing LED streetlights.
"I don't know where you're going to get (the money)" to fund streetlight repair for the rest of the year, he said.
Many, if not most, communities have switched to LED streetlights in recent years -- but Dunkirk's effort was botched. City officials allege that many of the new lights were defective, and Dunkirk is supposedly pursuing legal action against the company that made them.
Woodbury speculated that money from a settlement on that item could fund streetlight repair in the future.
Street repairs is the third key DPW budget line that is empty. Woodbury said he would work with Fiscal Affairs Officer Ellen Luczkowiak on a fund transfer from somewhere else "to get that in the black."