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Marco Islanders will get less bang for their bucks this Independence Day, but can at least count on a local fireworks show.

After ensuring in budget talks that the city would fund fireworks again this year, City Council reaffirmed that decision at its last regularly scheduled council meeting when the members told former interim City Manager Tony Shoemaker to sign the contract for the show.

Shoemaker, whose resignation took effect after last week, asked council for a consensus on the $42,000 expenditure in light of the increasingly tight budgetary picture laid out before the city. The current fiscal year is the first one in which the city is operating with less property tax revenue than the previous year.

Additionally, the 2007 show was a bust, ending after about 10 minutes because of technical difficulties on the barge where they were being staged. The city got its money back for that botched display, a $40,000 job contracted with Pyro Engineering/Bay Fireworks, a New York-based company.

Rather than take a credit from Pyro Engineering toward this year’s fireworks, the city is contracting with the company that ran the show in 2005 and 2006. However, those shows came at a lower price — $35,000 and $38,000 respectively — and used more rounds than will be fired at this year’s show.

The bid for this year’s show proposed firing 2,834 shells, compared to the 3,806 fired both in 2005 and 2006. Shoemaker provided the figures in an email to City Council prior to their March 17 meeting. He needed to execute the contract soon because a time delay could have meant losing the opportunity for a fireworks celebration on Marco Island.

City Contracts and Purchasing Manager Bob Creighton confirmed Monday that the contract had been executed with Firepower Displays Unlimited, a company based out of Princeton, Fla. Council authorized the expenditure from reserves through a consensus, but some were more reluctant than others.

Councilor Frank Recker told his fellow councilors at the time that he had a hard time reconciling the strained budget with a $42,000 expenditure from reserves for a nonessential service. He objected to the expense while most of the council agreed to go forward because, among other reasons, residents and visitors expect the show.

“Wow,” he said after the consensus was made. “I’m trying to stop a moving train.”

In future years, councilors said in interviews, the city should make a concerted effort to elicit funding for the show.

“I’d like to see the city and the hotels work together to put something together that’s really nice for the Fourth of July,” Councilor Ted Forcht said.

Forcht said the city’s lack of a show — or one that fell short of expectations — put the city in a bad light in 2007. The display is an opportunity for the city to come together physically, he said, so it makes sense for the community to come together financially to make it happen.

It would be nice to see residents kicking in a contribution toward fireworks, said Councilor Rob Popoff, but the expenditure is actually a small one for the end benefit.

“I’ve never objected to the city paying for fireworks,” Popoff said. “In the scope of our budget it’s a very nominal line item.”

Others say the intangible benefit of the shows make the expense well worth it.

“I also see the value,” said Councilor Jerry Gibson. “It’s like Parks and Recreation. You can never put your finger on it and say, ‘This is the benefit to the city,’ but we know it’s for the overall celebration of a village.”

Still, Gibson agreed that in the future, the city needs to examine other funding sources for the fireworks display. He said he sees the difficulty in encouraging people to give money when they are not obligated — he can recall attempts by the Kiwanis Club to fund fireworks through money collections at the fireworks shows years ago.

“Kiwanis used to have collection things right there at the show,” Gibson said. “When people were leaving they’d walk right on by those collection things. Kiwanis had to give it up because it got too expensive for them.”

During slim budget years, the shows may start to become too expensive even for the city, some say. Gibson conceded that the city must find more innovative ways of paying for the display, such as farming the cost out to businesses on the island or encouraging nonprofits to take over some of the responsibility.

“The only reason I went along with it at this time was we had no time to do that,” Chair Bill Trotter said. “The only choice was not to have any fireworks at all or to fund it.”

Recker said that “back in the day” when he was on the Marco Island Civic Association board of directors, that group would donate toward fireworks displays, hotels would contribute and businesses would kick in something.

“Since the council did not choose to discuss this ... the contract has been signed and the council is on the hook,” Recker said. “I think contractually it’s too late.”