ROGERS CITY — City Manager Joe Hefele said he will bring back any information he receives at his meeting with the Treasury Department today.

Hefele discussed the meeting at the City of Rogers City Council workshop Monday.

“We discussed the pension corrective action plan and the potential need to ask for a Headlee rollback, but just to show Treasury there is sufficient revenue available,” Hefele said. “We have more than enough to make our bond payments if that becomes possible. I’m sure it will be on the table again for more discussion once I’m back from the meeting with more information.”

Recently the city received a notice from the state that it has 180 days to create corrective action plan to address its pension liability.

Hefele said he told council that what he and an adviser have come up with so far is an appropriate action plan to give to the state.

“His position is they have no intent of state taking over at this point, what we’ve done already will suffice. I don’t care what they’re doing I’ve got to fix it regardless,” Hefele said.

He said they want to be careful about how they address the pension issue.

“The two things we don’t want to do is raise the cost of living so much that existing residents are looking to get out and it becomes impossible to market ourselves to new residents because our tax rates are so high. The other thing we don’t want to do is take every penny of the tax dollars and do nothing with it except put into pensions. If I’m a taxpayer and the roads are falling apart and the sidewalks are falling apart and there’s lack of law enforcement, what am I paying for?” he said.

The option the city wants to fight for is to take existing revenue and apply it to bond payments.

Mayor Scott McLennan said Gov. Rick Snyder is not supportive of this plan yet, which is why it’s important for Hefele to speak with Treasury.

“There will be no quick fix. We’re trying to get Treasury accepting to it verses adamantly opposed,” Hefele said.

Jordan Spence can be reached via email at jspence@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5687.