From left, Gail Kotajarvi-Gerard, Eric Waara and Amy Zawada go over how the state's budget will impact the city. While cuts have been made in some regards, Houghton will have an increase in road funding.

HOUGHTON — The City of Houghton will have to contend with a reduction in money from the state as a result of last week’s passage of a state budget. The city will face a four percent cut in state revenue sharing according to Houghton City Manager Eric Waara during the city council meeting Wednesday. Waara explained the cuts were supposed to be replaced with public safety dollars, but there is a setback with this method.

“What they did is they said, ‘Oh, we’ll replace the money. We’ll help backfill some of the money with public safety dollars.’ Except we’re a rural low-crime area, so if you’re the City of Houghton, you got your revenue sharing cut by $41,000 and only got about $7,500 back through the public safety thing,” Waara said. “But downstate, where your revenue sharing was cut by $400,000 but you’re getting $1.2 million in public safety bucks so it works out good for those guys. But I guess we’re somewhat benefitting in the area we do and living the lifestyle that we do.”

Waara also has concerns with how MEDC and other programs will operate in the future, but did say there is a bright spot. “But the only bright spot is they’re going to give us some money to ‘fix the damn roads,'” he said.

The city will see about a $420,000 or 33.4 percent, increase in road funding. How the formulas and disbursements work in relation to this is yet to be seen. Waara explained the city spends a significant amount of money managing snow and additional dollars can hopefully go into road pavement. Currently the city is patching potholes and will continue until winter arrives. Waara said DPW will also be working on trimming anything overhanging the road or could be in the path of snowplows.

In other action, Waara reported speaking with Michigan Tech officials and the University is interested in bringing some of the Winter Carnival snow statues to the downtown pier in 2026. Interviews for a Community and Business Development Manager have also occurred, and the city is determining who will fill the position. Waara also addressed questions from citizens regarding the area on Sharon Ave near the old Sears building. A lot owned by Moyle Construction is undergoing clearing and grading, which Waara said is presumably to make the lot more sellable. There are no building plans imminent.