Beverly Hills Mayor Bosse: City's Bottom Line Is All Black

EDITOR’S NOTE: Beverly Hills Mayor Lili Bosse gave the annual ”state of the city” address Wednesday evening at the historic Greystone Mansion Formal Gardens. Because of the speech’s length, Patch is presenting it to you in parts. Today is Part II. Read Part I here. Read Part II here.

Since this is the “STATE OF THE CITY” address, I DO have some comments regarding the financial condition of the city.

Our CFO Don Rhodes, our city Treasurer Eliot Finkel, AND our BOTTOM LINE all agree: THE CITY IS DOING GREAT!! WE ARE IN ROBUST FINANCIAL HEALTH!!!

Our tax base is well-diversified --- REVENUE GROWTH IS STEADY --- EXPENDITURE GROWTH IS MODERATE --- AND OUR RESERVES ARE FULLY FUNDED!

There are VERY few cities that can make this statement.

Over the past several years, our city’s general fund has generated healthy surpluses, and these are CONSERVATIVELY projected to continue for at least five years out.

NOW is the perfect time to plan for the future and make wise, long-term financial decisions. Use of our existing and predicted surpluses should focus on capital projects as opposed to an increase in operating programs which are difficult to reduce or eliminate once they’re in place.

I want to talk for a moment about unfunded liabilities. This is a very real financial issue facing many cities and it has also become a hot political topic. Here in Beverly Hills, we are very aware and proactive in how we are approaching this obligation.

For those of you who may not have followed this in the news, our unfunded liability is money that will be coming due over the next few decades to pay for city employee pensions – some projections indicate an amount over $200 million – a truly staggering figure.

The council has begun to tackle this issue with $2 million allocated last fiscal year and another $2 million this year. We need to establish a specific percentage goal for our unfunded liabilities.

We will be exploring other alternatives, and – ideally – new approaches to prepare for our future obligations. This is and will continue to be – a very high priority item for this council.

And now – back to the GOOD news – our overall extremely HEALTHY financial picture is the result of several factors – an improved economy, good city budgetary practices and reasonable cost control measures – certainly – AND one of the very MOST important factors to our financial health is the AMAZING contributions of our Beverly Hills business partners.

Business tax generates 20 percent of our General Fund’s revenues – a figure possibly unmatched ANYWHERE – Our fabulous hotels’ TOT generates 18 percent – and sales tax, 15 percent. Property tax is 24 percent of the general fund revenue base and much of that is business related as well.

So – CLEARLY – any planning for the future will ABSOLUTELY include very strong continued support of and partnership with our fabulous business community.

From my years on the Traffic and Parking Commission, I remember this quote: “All roads lead to PARKING!” Our city parking is extremely important, as we all know. We understand that available parking in attractive, convenient, well-maintained parking facilities are a part of our brand and are essential to our continued success and growth.

END OF PART III

PHOTO Credit DVR Productions