Though the commissions are composed of volunteers, the city spends staff time and money to keep them functioning smoothly.

The arts commission and the parks and recreation commission are being suspended for a year. At the end of a year, the council will look at the resources available for the next budget cycle and decide on the future of those two commissions.

The public safety commission will be called the traffic commission from now on. Commissioners will meet four times a year instead of meeting every month. The library commission will also meet four times a year.

The planning commission and the heritage preservation commission will continue as usual. These programs are mandated by the state.

The finance commission will meet on an ad-hoc basis when needed by the city and the council. The youth commission will continue but the city is expected to make substantial cuts in its funding.

The council decided to go ahead with the cuts at a meeting on March 16. On March 1, an ad-hoc committee composed of Mayor Kathleen King and Vice Mayor Norman Kline met with the chairmen of all of the commissions to talk about the budget cuts and the future.

At the meeting, many commissioners talked about the importance of keeping the different commissions going. The meeting also generated different ideas on how to make the commissions more efficient and how to reduce staff resources for the commissions.

At the March 16 meeting, Arts Commissioner Leroy Murray asked the council to allocate some resources so that the library art wall program could continue. "The exhibits have been selected; the artists have been notified," said Murray.

Councilwoman Ann Waltonsmith said it would be nice if the arts commissions and the parks and recreation commissions could meet once or twice a year.

Kline said that it was the job of commissions to focus on policy only. "We are in the middle of a financial meltdown. We will need to hire more staff if we decide to keep all the commissions going," he said.

Councilman Nick Streit said that some of the cuts did not go far enough but he was willing to compromise.

King suggested that a few volunteer programs could be started so that some of the commission work could be redistributed.

"We can have an arts volunteer program through the recreation department," she said.

Other changes recommended by the ad- hoc committee included distributing agendas by email to reduce costs. Commission meetings will be limited to two hours, while meeting minutes will be prepared by commissioners. Drafts of these minutes will be reviewed by city staff before being presented to the council.

The committee also suggested that the number of commissioners on non-regulatory commissions like the finance, traffic and library commissions be reduced from seven to five by attrition.