City Budget Workshop Tomorrow

Here are my notes on the Budget which is going to be discussed Tuesday night at 6 pm at City Hall.

INCOME AND EXPENSES

Both income and expenses are going up, in approximate amounts. The General Fund income is going to $41M and the expenses are projected at $40.2M so there is a $800,000 cushion.

The major sources of revenue are:

· Property Taxes - $14.9M (33%)

· Sales Tax - $14.8M (31%)

· Other Taxes - $6.3M (14%)

· Licenses and Permits - $1.7M (5%)

The major sources of expenditures are:

· Police - $15.3M (35%)

· Public Works - $11.7M (27%)

· Management Services - $5.2M (12%)

· Community Services - $3.5M (8%)

· City Attorney - $1.3M (3%)

In terms of categories, 60% of the payments are for contracts, 19% for Personnel, and 21% for Operations and Maintenance.

The City employs 63 full-time people.

Here is the salary breakdown for some of the major City employees. These figures do not include generous additional benefits. The City does not publish exact salaries nor does the budget reveal exact salaries, but rather the City obfuscates this data by using “Salary Range” and by combining Personnel salaries by Department (a poor practice which flies in the face of “transparency”). OTOH, here is what we find at a government website –

· City Manager - $263,438

· Asst City Manager - $206,191

· Dept. City Manager - $138,851

· Director Public Works - $136,135

· Director Finance - $153,577

· Director Development Services - $180,113

· Director Community Services - $151,518

CAPITAL EXPENSES

Staff is projecting $8.9M in Fiscal Year (FY) 15-16 and $5.8M in FY 16-17. Some of the major projects include Village Pond Park rehabilitation, Storm Drains, Portola Streetscape Widening, Street Repaving and Slurry Seal.

RESERVE FUNDS

We are projecting $10.9M in the General Fund, $5.5M in the Economic Contingency Fund, and $3M in the Emergency Fund.

CHANGES

It’s hard to figure out where we are gaining and losing ground, but here is my preliminary assessment. Some Departments are showing marginally lower costs (Council, Manager, Finance, Attorney) and some show marginally higher costs (Public Works, Community Services). The largest increases are in Police (7%) and Management Services (25%) and the largest decrease is in Development Services (-20%).

Tomorrow we’ll look at spending in specific areas.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 3 pm to 5 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting every month. The next meeting will be on May 16 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.

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