FAIRLAWN: Mayor Bill Roth says the city’s finances improved last year and were on track with revenue from 2008, which he called the last normal year before the latest recession.“Right now, the financial picture for Fairlawn is sound. Revenue for 2011 was up 6.2 percent. We have improved over the dismal years of 2009 and 2010,” Roth said.The mayor told city council on Monday night that he will deliver his State of the City address in council chambers Jan. 23. He gave the city’s financial outlook to the Fairlawn Chamber of Commerce earlier Monday at the Hilton Akron-Fairlawn hotel.“The increased revenue is good news for the city. We are happy with the uptick in revenue, but at the same time it’s hard to predict anything long term, especially with what’s going on at the Statehouse taking away sources of income for the local level,” Roth said.“We see signs of positive activity in Fairlawn,” the mayor continued. “We are fortunate in Fairlawn because we have a diverse tax base.“We have different types of corporate headquarters here: retail, the office park and other businesses. Because we are diverse, we are recovering from the recession faster.”Roth said the vast majority of Fairlawn’s revenue is city income tax.“In Fairlawn we have 7,400 residents, but we surge in the daytime with people — anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 or higher who do business here.’’Roth told the chamber audience he was happy to announce there will be no increase in health-care costs for the city.“Health care is about 11 percent of the city’s operating budget. We are fortunate that working with our insurance broker, bargaining units and health-care committee, and seeking competitive bids, we were able to have no increase in health-care costs,” he said.Roth said the city had been seeing increases in health-care costs every year recently.For the third year in a row, the operating budget — money used for day-to-day operations and payroll — will be 2 percent less than the previous year. For 2012, it will be $11 million.Roth said that even with several retirements last year —the list included the service director and two other full-time service workers, the fire chief and two other full-time firefighters, two full-time police officers and one dispatcher — the city will use caution in filling the positions.“We will fill some of these positions with new full timers, but we aren’t going to fill them all. We will make do with what we have,” he said.“We are doing more with less but still maintaining high service levels for our residents.”Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or mmiller@thebeaconjournal.com.