The city’s “budget workshop” will take place Tuesday at 5:30. This is a working meeting prior to discussing the actual budget. It’s our chance to check base, move things, around, add and subtract. The workshop puts us in a better position when we formally discuss the budget.
PRIORITIES
According to the staff report, for the next year we have 5 “major initiatives” facing us. These are
- Construction of the Lake Forest Civic Center
- Updating the General Plan
- 16 traffic and street related projects
- Transition from at-large to district based elections.
- Transparency initiatives such as a new mobile application (app) to facilitate resident engagement with the City
To round out the top 10, here are my suggested additions –
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- Upgrade 10 city parks as well as Village Pond Park.
- Get traffic and parking problems under control with new staff and new Commission.
- Get animal adoption center off the ground and functioning fully.
- Effectively deal with the ever rising costs of the Police contract.
- Perform our due diligence in light of the possibilities of OCFA problems with the withdrawal of Irvine and unfunded pension liabilities.
More details are available online (Click Here).
Inherent in all of this is a restructuring of the staff responsibilities as we move into a different era for our City.
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DOLLARS AND SENSE
- The staff proposes to spend $114 million of which $64.7 million are one-time capital expenditures.
- Our General fund will get $46.9 million and spend $45.5 million, with $0.1 million in transfers to reserves.
- In revenues, Property taxes (33%), Sales taxes (29%), and Other Taxes (13%) are our major sources. Property taxes are expected to grow 7.6%, sales tax 2%, and hotel taxes 1.4%.
- In expenditures, Police Services (35%), Public Works (26%), Community Services (8%) and Development Services (8%) are our major costs. In actual amounts Police Services $17,363,900, Public Works $12,655,700, Community Services $3,977,900 and Development Services $4,192,600.
- 63% of our total expenditures will be for “contractual services” which includes Police.
DEMOGRAPHICS
According to the staff report
- Population is 83,190
- Size is 16.8 square miles
- 28,443 housing units
- Median age is 38.9
- Median Household income is $97,005
- 38.4% White, 27.5% Hispanic, 15.3% Asian, 1.8% Black, and 17% Other.
CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS
- $55,000,000 – Civic Center
- $4,200,000 – Portola Park
- $2,275,000 – Street resurface and slurry seal
- $500,000 – Sports Park turf replacement
- $417,500 – I5 interchange signs
- $380,000 – Traffic signal upgrades
- $350,000 – Neighborhood park renovations
- $225,000 – New shade structures for parks
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 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a Town Hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be on May 27 at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.
