Musings about the proposed budget...

Don't forget the budget workshop is this coming Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in the Commission Chambers, City Hall. No agenda is up yet on the City's website. If there is anything additional other than the budget, I will let you know. There is also a Planning and Zoning Board meeting to discuss the draft revisions to the Comprehensive Plan at the Golf Course Clubhouse at 6 p.m. I'll try to attend both, but it's too bad that these are occurring at basically the same time. Some questions upon further review of the budget:

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We are reducing the number of employees by a net of 27 (601 present + 15 additions - 42 positions eliminated = 574) and the general fund budget is increasing by $7,963,092 or 19.975%

And the Utility fund is increasing $4,992,225 or 6.838%.

The Enterprise funds are flat - actually less than the current budget year.

Is this fiscal constraint? Yes, we are going to be abiding to the 9% decrease from the rollback rate, but user fees (Certificate of Use program) and utilities are increasing. Is this the new "heroin", as Mayor Clemens proclaimed on the campaign trail, referring to the utility contribution to the general fund? Who is the group that will be hardest hit by the impact of these new fees?

How far down the road are we on the decision to go to the Sheriff's department? Don't we need our own municipal police force? Are there other areas that we can look at privatizing to save funds in the future?

Was the Fire Department left out of the budget making process? Do the impacts there actually contribute to our meeting the County's concurrency targets on staff per vehicle?

Where is the line item showing what we are paying for outside legal fees? The contractual services listed under the Law Department budget seem unusually low for the amount of outside counsel the City employs.

Where are the savings from increased internal controls? This would not likely show up in this coming year's budget, but we should figure out how to quantify this so that we can assess the impact in future years. Any savings can be used to increase reserves.

Please feel free to add to these concerns and comments related to the proposed 2007-2008 budget.
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