In one way or another, each department in the city of Oak Harbor will be struck by the budget ax next year.

Tuesday’s five-hour city council budget workshop put the spotlight on Oak Harbor’s financial situation. The overall sentiment seemed to be that projections from 2009 are doable, but continuing the same level of service through 2010 is questionable.

The heads of several departments explained where cuts will be made.

With the 2009 budget projections remaining at the 2008 revenue level, a 4 percent increase in expenditures is cause for concern, said Police Chief Rick Wallace.

“It does present a challenge for us,” he said.

Of four vacant police department positions, two will lose funding this year, meaning that the department will likely not fund the captain or high school resource officer positions for 2009.

The school resource officer is partially a casualty of the Oak Harbor School District. The school district decided to discontinue funding for the position earlier this year, leaving the city with the dilemma of whether or not to continue the position with only 50 percent available funds for the position.

The police department is experiencing cuts on vehicle replacement, facility communications and professional services from the ICOM dispatch center as well.

“The reality is, we’re just trying to hit the budget mark by spreading it out,” Wallace said.

The budget outlook for the fire department was just as grim. Two vacant positions will not receive funding this year and the marine firefighting vessel and exhaust evacuation system will be eliminated, said Fire Chief Mark Soptich.

“These are some pretty substantial cuts,” he said.

The Parks Department couldn’t escape budget woes, either. Despite the increasing cost of water, officials are proposing a budget that is less than the 2007 actual budget, said Public Works Director Cathy Rosen.

“We will shut water off to decrease the frequency of mowing,” she said. “Some of the parks will go brown. We’re going to try, we’re going to do our best, but I think the community parks are going to see a decrease in the level of service they receive.”

The department eliminated park improvements to Windjammer Park facilities, replacement of the Windjammer Lagoon bridge, the extension of Freund Marsh Trail to the waterfront, the replacement of playground equipments at Shadow Glen and Kimball parks and scrapped plans to install auto irrigation systems at Catalina, Tyhuis, Lueck and Kimball Parks, in addition to cutting one requested personnel position.

Development Services will eliminate a summer intern program for 2010 and cut equipment replacement. In an effort to stretch funding, the department will pare contracted professionals services and move the workload to city staff when possible.

The city is learning to spend wisely in this budget-crunching time, officials said. In its effort to pinch pennies, the city is now contracting work to city employees instead of independent contractors, Doug Merriman said.

“We do a lion’s share of this work in-house,” said Merriman of the department’s efforts to keep its expenses down.

Finance lost a vacant accountant position, and the workload will be allocated to existing staff. Part of a remodeling project was also stricken from the budget.

The streets department took another hit to its street overlay program, in addition to the loss of one maintenance position.

The mayor, city council and staff are not done with the budget yet. A second meeting will take place at the Oak Harbor Fire Station on Oct. 29 at 6 p.m.

A $287,453 gap remains for the 2009 budget, said City Administrator Paul Schmidt.

“The gap still needs to be closed, but we still need to maintain the same level of service that Oak Harbor Citizens have come to expect.” he said. “This is not sustainable unless we find other sources of revenue.”