75A - FY 2004-2005 CITY BUDGETS - Laserfiche WebLink

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FY 2004-05 City June 7, 2004 Page 2 Budget to the system, which has resulted in a reduction of $1.4 million for the coming year. The State's fiscal crisis created by a structural deficit, coupled with the impact of the investment losses in the State run retirement system, has resulted in a pronounced impact on the City's budget. Gi ven this financial environment, our efforts in preparing the proposed 2004-2005 fiscal year budget have been focused on resolving the dilemma of meeting the demands for services and infrastructure improvements while coping with declining revenues and increased retirement system costs. Specifically, the challenge of balancing the 2004-2005 General Fund budget was to address a projected deficit of expenditures exceeding revenues by approximately $25 million. This budget proposal responds to that challenge through a balanced approach of increasing revenues, decreasing expenditures and implementing a proposed increase in the hotel visitors' tax. This tax increase proposal, the implementation of which will require a vote of the people, raises the current rate paid on the cost of room rental in the City's hotels from nine to eleven percent; a rate that would remain competitive to those imposed by surrounding cities. The proposed 2004-2005 budget for the General Fund, without including the redevelopment pass-through amounts, totals $187,396,985, which constitutes a growth in general revenues of less than two percent over the past fiscal year. Additionally, this budget incorporates a cost of services adj ustment of three percent in general and safety related fees, 6.4 percent in the water rate, and 50 percent in the Park Acquisition and Development Fees. In terms of expenditures, the General Fund budget supports the functions most commonly associated with city government: police, fire, recreation, library, planning and building, street maintenance, and general city administration. These services are being provided to an increasing population; according to the State Department of Finance, the population of the City in 2004 is 349,123 which constitutes a 51 percent increase over the past fifteen years. Even though the City's population has substantially increased over that time period, we have reduced our overall supervisory and management positions by over 20 percent. Through these and other workforce reductions, coupled with the improvements resulting from our quality program, the City continues to maintain its position of being the most efficient at providing services when compared to the 11 largest cities in California and the 100 largest cities in the country. 75A.1-2