75A1 - FY 05-06 CITY BUDGET - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

FY 2005-06 City Budget June 6, 2005 Page 2 of this measure limited the ability of the State to divert future local government revenues, it allowed the reallocation of an additional $3.0 million of the City's property tax revenues to the State for the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (ERAF) in both the 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 fiscal years; this results in a total of $10 million in General Fund property tax reductions for the coming fiscal year which will be coupled with another $3.4 million diverted from redevelopment tax increment revenues. The State's actions to address its fiscal crisis, coupled with the impact of the investment losses in the State-run retirement system, have resulted in a pronounced impact on the City's budget. Given this financial environment, the City's efforts in preparing the proposed 2005-2006 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 2005-2006 General Fund budget was to address a projected deficit resulting from expenditures exceeding revenues by approximately $23 million. This budget proposal responds to that challenge through a balanced approach of increasing revenues and decreasing expenditures. The proposed 2005-2006 budget for the General Fund, without including redevelopment and other pass-throughs, totals $197,803,660, which constitutes a growth in general revenues of less than one percent over the past fiscal year. Additionally, this budget incorporates a cost of services adjustment of five percent in general and safety related fees and 4 percent in the water rate. 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 351,697, which constitutes a 55 percent increase over the past twenty years. Although the City's population has substantially increased over that time period, we have reduced our overall supervisory and management pos i tions by over 20 percent. The subj ect resolution implements a budget reduction of the managerial workforce by one additional position. This brings the total workforce allocation to 1,713. This workforce figure equates to a ration of 4.8 employees per 1,000 residents and demonstrates a significant improvement in operational efficiencies over the past several years; in FY 1986-87, the ratio was 7.5 employees per 1,000 residents. Through a combination of reductions in our workforce, maintaining a number of positions vacant and generating savings through systems improvements resulting from our continuous improvement efforts, the City continues to maintain its position of being 75A1-2