Pinkerton's Budget Would Cut Staff by 29, Fund Road Maintenance & More

City Manager Steve Pinkerton proposed a budget at Tuesday night’s city council meeting that would save the city $7 million over the next year. It aims to aggressively meet the city's unfunded liabilities while addressing the urgent need for road maintenance and more. 

It also calls for staffing cuts that would make the city workforce the smallest it's been since the mid '90s. You can poke around the full proposed budget here.

“If all goes according to the city manager’s plan,” wrote Tom Sakash in Wednesday’s Enterprise. “Davis would reduce its staff by 29 full-time-equivalent positions over the coming year, dropping the city to 376 full-time employees, a level last seen 15 years ago. The city has slashed 15.5 percent of its staff over the past four years.”

THIS PDF HAS THE FULL PRESENTATION >>

Pinkerton warns that the city’s challenges are long-term and that there could be more reductions down the line. He says he following in his budget introduction with the following two paragraphs:  

This budget begins to address some of the long term unfunded liabilities accrued over the past decades by proactively addressing changes to the PERS investment assumptions and funding the full 20% of salaries for retiree medical as indicated by actuaries. In the short-term, we must also continue to  address the ongoing costs of maintaining city infrastructure including maintenance and repair of  streets, bike paths, sidewalks; and to deferred maintenance and replacement costs for city facilities. 

It is clear that regardless of the extent of any pending economic recovery, local governments - including the City of Davis - must adapt to a new reality, be it to secure and strengthen a reliable base  of revenues in support of public services, advance efforts to regain local control of the state-fiscal  relationship, improve management of program and personnel expenditures, and look for new ways to  provide for basic, core services.  At the same time, communities and governments are facing new  challenges and emerging priorities, most notably in the area of environmental stewardship and management of natural resources.

The budget also addresses road maintenance and transportation issues, which are widely believed to need immediate attention. Pinkerton's budget sends almost $2 million in that direction. 

For more detailed information and analysis of the budget:

• Click through the Full Budget
• Read Pinkerton's Full Introduction
• Read the Davis Enterprise Story
• Read the Davis Vanguard Analysis

What do you think of the proposed budget? 

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