News Briefing
Half Moon Bay could be the first city in recent memory to "disincorporate". Debt payments on a $15 million lawsuit and declining revenues make this doomsday scenario a possibility. Read the entire story here.
San Jose's firefighters refused an opportunity to take a pay cut and get jobs back (click here). The city's budget gap is over $100 million, partly due to the fact that total compensation for public safety has more than doubled over the past decade.
Anti-tax advocates aren't happy about Tracy's proposed sales tax increase. Read the opinion piece here.
Little Solano Beach is the first city in San Diego County to get all of their employee groups to agree to pay for 100 percent of their PERS contribution (click here).
Hundreds of layoffs and a huge reduction in services has only reduced Fresno's budget gap down to $12 million (click here).
Just as in Stockton, the Santa Barbara PD has hired a consultant to try and find money in the city's upside budget for police salaries. The union apparently hasn't received the answers they wanted to hear in the past as this is the third different consultant they've had look at the books -- Stockton has only hired two of these guys so far. (click here)
In Long Beach, more than 200 layoffs are needed to stem the ongoing budget crisis. Final numbers are dependent on labor negotiations. (click here)
I have at least 100 more of these articles I could post from just the past week. I think these give you a good idea that the current recession is far reaching and impacting cities of every shape and size. All of us have seen decreasing revenues and increasing labor costs --- not a recipe for success -- but also not something anyone expected -- particularly of this magnitude. I find it amazing how many articles seem to think that the budget problems are a local, and not national problem.
Many groups seem to want to pin the budget deficit on specific decisions made by their City Council. In reality, this budget crisis occurred in both fiscally conservative and fiscally aggressive cities.
You have to make certain assumptions when putting together a budget. You can't assume absolute worse case or best case when it comes to projecting costs and revenues. No one could have predicted the quickness and severity of the financial/economic meltdown -- it was unprecedented in all of our professional lifetimes. To claim that our city fathers could have prepared for the status quo is unrealistic.
However, it did happen and now we just have to do our best. That means cutting costs wherever possible without jeopardizing city services. That is all any of us are doing -- and I'm confident that we will have a leaner more efficient government at the end of the day - -but probably one that is very different than the one we experienced over the past 50 years.