The village of Bethel has made serious ground eliminating spending in recent years, and is getting closer to being out of fiscal emergency.

Mayor James Dick was emotional about the announcement, which he made at the Dec. 15 council meeting soon after the village officials met with state auditors.

“We understood the village is responsible, and we needed to get out of debt as quickly as possible,” Mayor Dick said.

Mayor Dick said the state declared the village in fiscal emergency in December of 2009 when they had more than $400,000 of debt across four village funds. He said in 2008, the village’s financial situation was worse with an estimated $618,000 in deficits across five funds.

Mayor Dick announced that if everything goes as planned, Dec. 31 the village is projected to have between $5,000 and $11,000 in the general fund, with all deficits payed off.

“In two years that is impressive,” Mayor Dick said about the progress made. “We should still be in debt.”

He said the reason the village is not in debt is because of the hard work of village officials who worked to be very conservative on expenditures with a goal to spend less than 85 percent of the revenue.

Mayor Dick said in 2009 the village spent only about 80 percent of the revenue. In 2010 they spent only 70 percent and this year he said they spent only 64 percent.

“How we made it happen is because we did better than 85 percent,” he said.

Mayor Dick said much of the credit goes to Bill Gilpin, fiscal officer, Travis Dotson, administrator, and Police Chief Mark Planck. He said they helped evaluate and control expenditures and find ways to get things done without spending much money.

Mayor Dick was happy about the progress made and said he is proud that the village was able to get out of debt quickly, however he warned officials to continue to be cautious with expenditures in the village.

“The deficit funds are gone,” Mayor Dick said. “But what we don’t have are the reserve funds.”

Mayor Dick will be leaving office this year and Alan Ausman, who was elected Nov. 8, will become the new mayor.

Mayor Dick said Ausman will be responsible for continuing the financial recovery plan, which includes making a formal request to the state to be released from fiscal emergency. The state will then look at the villages progress and five-year forecast before they make their decision.

Mayor Dick said this could happen as early as March of 2012.