Topeka city council members are finding that they can't make a dollar out of 15 cents as budget cuts absorbed conversation at Tuesday night’s Topeka city council meeting. This coming just a day after department cuts were released to the media.

The document released yesterday by City Spokesperson David Bevins accounted for cuts in 12 different city departments. The zoo and the city manager's office were amongst the cuts but the most substantial cuts stand with in the parks and recreation, public works, and police departments. The police fund being cut by over 232 thousand dollars.

City Manager Norton Bonaparte says he made these cuts to keep city spending within the 2008 budget passed by council back in August. With last week's fire chief announcement to close down one fire engine at station number 3, because of a 95,000 dollar cut to fire department spending, both council members and citizens spoke about how the cut could affect coverage in that area.

Council Member Sylvia Ortiz says, “I seen a little girl burn up in a fire in Eastgate. Those same concerned citizens are wondering what is going to happen with the response times when there's nobody there.”

Topeka citizen Linda Cook says, “If the concern is for safety, the homes on the West side are newer and farther apart with the ability to contain the fires better and faster.”

Topeka citizen Lena Russell says, “Don't you ever over look East Topeka, we want the same things in the east part of the city as you want downtown and west of Topeka.”

Mayor Bunten said Tuesday night that the council members should recognize that it's their job to adequately fund all of these programs. He also suggested that perhaps the council is in this situation because it opted not to increase city property tax.

In other council news, a resolution was passed to give the city council's support to a Senate committee on a joint city-state venture to work with the Capital Area Plaza Authority to clean-up and beautify downtown Topeka. If passed, this project won’t start-up until next legislative session.