No sidewalks will be replaced after the cut, but the East Lansing Department of Public Works is planning to keep enough money on hand, between $10,000 and $15,000, to fund short-term repairs, East Lansing Director of Public Works Todd Sneathen said.

The funding cut is part of other planned reductions for the upcoming fiscal year, including a consolidation of the city’s 911 dispatch center into one shared center for Ingham County in Lansing.

East Lansing officials are looking to fill a $944,645 projected deficit between revenues and expenditures this year and the upcoming fiscal year.

The city’s total projected general fund budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year is about $31.5 million.
Sneathen said the city has gone through the process of cutting funding for the sidewalks program in the past, most recently in 2010-11.

For the next five years, East Lansing officials are projecting no funding for the program, but Sneathen said he hopes that will change.

“It’s unfortunate that we have to do it that way,” he said. “The infrastructure is something I think we have to continue to maintain.”

Sneathen said, in 2010-11, the city kept enough money on hand to temporarily repair and patch sidewalks, but could not afford to completely replace dangerous sidewalks as a result of the funding cuts.

The short-term repairs led the city to spend about $38,888 on the program in 2010-11, according to budget documents.

East Lansing resident and Abbott Woods Neighborhood Association treasurer Tom Brown said he is concerned with the projected cuts, specifically pointing to an elderly population in the city that uses sidewalks frequently to walk to restaurants and businesses.

“There are some other areas they could look to save money,” he said.

“Maintaining sidewalks in the city is important.”

As the city looks to cut funding for the replacement program, public works officials are about two-thirds of the way through a 12- to- 15-year cycle to evaluate the state of the city’s sidewalks, Sneathen said.

He said in examining the evaluation so far, no one area of the city’s sidewalks stands out to him as being in worse shape than another area.

City Manager George Lahanas said at the city’s budget meeting last weekend that when looking at the city’s plans for capital improvement projects — including funding for the city’s sidewalks — East Lansing is in a similar position to other cities.

“Governments over the past 30 years have done a particularly poor job looking at long-term liabilities,” he said.