Correspondence - Item 30 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Araiza, Fatima From:Tim Johnson <tjohnson@jlkrllp.com> Sent:Monday, May 06, 2024 6:36 PM To:eComment; Amezcua, Valerie; Lopez, Jessie; Bacerra, Phil; Penaloza, David; Hernandez, Johnathan; Phan, Thai; Vazquez, Benjamin Cc:Downs, Kathryn Subject:Item 30- Budget Work Study Session Attention: This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana. Use caution when opening attachments or links. Mayor Amezcua, Mayor Pro Tem Phan, my Ward 3 Councilmember Lopez and all of our City Council (cc Dir Downs)…Whenever I see a budget item and I have ?me to review it, I will do my best to do so. Director Downs has been pu?ng together some good informa?on for the council including a pre?y snazzy looking presenta?on! You have listened and given feedback. The Council appears to be concerned about the impending sunset of Measure X- I am hearing discussion from the dais about it. That is encouraging. I feel like I have been making some of these same comments over the past years about ge?ng ready for the sunset of Measure X. In fact, I just did an email search, and my recollec?on is correct…almost since the beginning of the increased sales tax generated by Meas X, I have been saying that “now is the ?me” to get ready for the sunset. Pre?y much every year, mul?ple ?mes a year. Well, if yesterday was the best ?me to get ready for it, the next best ?me is today. It is easy to say that we need to get ready. It also feels good to fund expanding programs in our city. No one want to cut services. Services is what our city provides to our residents. Residents want nice parks, streets, sidewalks, and other ac?vi?es- this all costs money. I get it…truly I do. No one wants to say…but, wait, can we aﬀord it? Should we consider dialing it back or at least not expanding this par?cular program. Should we put aside money for the future when we know that revenue will drop? We need to start having those diﬃcult discussions. So urge you to try to think about what our city will look like and the services that our residents expect from the city, when Measure X revenue drops by over $30M per year. Think how much easier it will be to have a gradual ramp down instead of a dras?c cliﬀ. When we save funding by increasing the general fund in something like a Measure X Sunset Stabiliza?on Fund to where we are pu?ng aside some revenue today in order to prepare for the future revenue drop but provide gradually reduced services, the impact will not be felt so dras?cally. I would have preferred to have done this in years that we were seeing Meas X revenue increase but we had our chance at that in the past and chose not to do it. Now, Meas X is constric?ng a bit but we can s?ll do this if we make it a priority. Now, I know that many will say something like…just bring in more revenue. As Director Downs will tell, you bringing in the type of revenue that the drop Meas X will have, is likely near impossible right now. Sure, we can do some things that will marginally move the needle but it will not be the solu?on many think it is. The drop in revenue is quite simply too large. I know the City is doing its best to try to focus its spending on one-?me expenditures. I appreciate how the presenta?ons, including the one you have in hand now, highlights the one ?me nature of certain items. However, when we are spending one ?me money year a?er year, then it starts to feel like a recurring expenditure. If you really think it is one ?me spending, then try to do a rolling rota?on of expenditure blackouts from Meas X to see how one ?me 1