In a year sure to be tough on budgets, the Dells-Delton EMS Commission approved a budget for next year without key items that Director Janene Clark requested.

The commission approved a balanced 2009 budget of almost $1.308 million Thursday morning at Marshall Memorial Hall, a 9.5 percent increase from this year's nearly $1.2 million budget.

Clark asked for several items for next year including three new full-time employees, better health insurance and a wage increase for the entire department.

Thursday she found out she will not be getting the new employees or the better health insurance plan.

"I'm a little disappointed," she said after the meeting, "but I understand it because of the economy. I knew it was going to be a tough budget coming in."

Clark didn't have the three new employees calculated into the proposed budget commission members reviewed last month because she said she was pretty sure she wasn't going to get them.

The proposed budget had a $100,000 difference between revenues and expenses, and the additional employees would've added another $161,000 to expenses.

Clark said she'll probably ask for the employees and increased benefits again next year, and will start exploring new avenues for generating more revenue until then.

Several budget items were cut by $2,000 or less, but the largest amount that helped close the $100,000 budget gap was the cut in health insurance costs.

Clark was asking for $100,000 next year in correlation with the increased benefits package, but that number was reduced to $50,000, the same as was budgeted for 2008.

The second largest area of cost cutting was under purchased vehicles. The department bought two new vehicles this year, one for Clark and also a "fly car."

The Commission decided to repay those cars over a five-year period instead of in 2009, which saved $23,342 in costs.

One of the biggest revenue problems the department has to overcome is collecting fees from people who use the service.

Commission member Tom Diehl said one-third of the department's billings are written down to a lower amount because programs like Medicare will only pay so much. The difference is an uncollectable loss the department must deal with.