MIDDLETOWN — City Council has passed a $108 million operating budget for next year, and already seated one of two new council members.

        On Tuesday, newly elected councilwoman Nancy Nix was sworn in to fill in the remaining term of Jerry Banks, who resigned before his term ended on Jan. 1.

        Mr. Banks said he plans to bid on some properties at the renovated City Centre Mall development and said it would have been inappropriate to do so as a member of council.

        Ms. Nix was appointed by council to fill Mr. Banks' term and will later be sworn in again after Jan. 1, when her own four-year term begins.

        The other new member of council is Perry Thatcher, whose term will also begin Jan. 1.

        The council voted 6-0, with councilman Earl Smith absent due to illness, to approve a $108 million budget for 2002.

        Though the city is struggling to find available money to repair and expand roadways, Middletown Vice Mayor David Schiavone said he was encouraged that the new budget had only 3 percent of next year's operating budget set aside for debt service.

        “We have been frugal in our borrowing. We have been very conscious of our debt service because it's an area you can't cut,” Mr. Schiavone said.

        • In other action, council decided to study Middletown ridership on the troubled Butler County Regional Transit Authority bus service before considering donating $5,000 to the bus line.

        The bus service has been hit by losses of state and federal funding. County voters in November rejected a sales tax increase to support the transit authority, and Butler County commissioners rejected the authority's request for $250,000 in short-term funding.

        The transit system offers fixed bus routes in Hamilton, Middletown, Fairfield and Oxford and provides park-and-ride sites.

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