Correspondence - #52 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

$1518. My family of 5 would be $7592 in debt. We need to understand and recognize that, determine if it is acceptable, and then come up with a plan to tackle it assuming the council agrees that our city's residents should not be in debt or at least commits to decreasing the level of debt. We are using today's revenue to pay for liabilities generated in the past ... we need to make headway. We need to take steps now to address both of the above items. This needs to be part of a long term financial strategic plan which would contain goals, steps to achieve those goals, and monitoring of the progress. This also means that such a plan will span across multiple councils, councilmembers, and possibly even other city leaders such as our city manager and police chief. We need to take long term financial stability seriously. We need to implement change now in order secure a better future. Ten Year Outlook Director Downs previously provided to you at the April 18t" council meeting on Agenda Item 22, the below Ten Year Outlook. She has previously provided the a similar schedule multiple times over the past few years. Fortunately, due to MX, the city's revenue is projected to cover its expenses for the next few years. However, the concern lies when the MX sales tax rate is reduced from 1.5% to 1% in 2029. As you can see there is a huge gap when this drop off occurs. The city NEEDS to prepare for this drop in revenue now. I applaud the council members/mayor that brought this up at your May 2nd meeting. Even if the city is utilizing MX funds for one time expenditures, when one time expenditures are utilized each year, which they have been, they become viewed as recurring expenditures. Expenditures which the city become reliant upon. If something is truly one-time, ask yourself, can we just not do that this year and save the money? If the answer is yes, well, then it is time to start making those decisions. If the answer is no we need to do that ... I question whether it is truly meets the spirit one-time spending. If we make changes to our spending now, couple that with increasing business activity and hence revenue in our city, we may be able to make the MX rate reduction impact more of a gradual slide instead of a drastic cut. Again, I know that it will be easy to say that MX spending is focused on one time items, but when that spending is happening year after year, it becomes part of the fabric of our city. I dub this Ten Year Outlook as my "scary chart" because it is scary to look at in 2029 and forward. The yellow (I added) below is the scary part. That shows our shortfall where projected Spending will exceed projected Revenue. What will the city look like with a $35M+ shortfall year after year? What can we do now to prepare for that shortfall? The earlier we plan for this gap, the easier it will be to lessen the impact on our residents, businesses, visitors, and city as a whole. 3