Council Chooses How They Spend Surplus

Trees and Redlands city vehicles will get some much needed attention from the city thanks to a surplus that turned out to be a much larger financial cushion than expected.

In a 4-1 vote, the council Tuesday approved using more than $398,000 on maintenance for about 3,100 street trees. Another $200,000 will be used for vehicles, including police vehicles. Councilman Jerry Bean opposed.

The funds are part of a $1.6 million surplus the city collected thanks to better-than-expected tax revenues that added an additional $1.2 million to city coffers. Several tax revenues exceeded budget estimates, according to city staff.

More than $79,000 came in from property taxes, $81,000 from sales tax, $36,000 from transient occupancy tax, or bed tax, $28,000 from franchise fees and $16,000 mining taxes alone, according to the staff report. This has helped the city look at other needs.

Redlands City Manager N. Enrique Martinez had initially suggested the money be used for roadwork, but councilman Jon Harris felt the tree maintenance would be a better use.

“I think staff has done a fabulous job on securing funds and expending funds on our street programs,” Harrison said. “The list of sources includes not only the sources we would normally expect but our staff has been very successful in obtaining grant money to really address our key needs.”

The tree maintenance, however, had barely $45,000 last year, far less than the $100,000 in the prior year. And even the larger amount was just barely enough to properly maintain the trees, Harrison said.

City councilman Jerry Bean, who voted against the expenditure, said the money should remain in a reserve balance “then deal with it as part of the budget process, which is a more deliberative process than just asking the council."

The city still has loans that it has to repay, including a $1 million loan from the general fund reserves in 2009. That loan was made during a financial crisis.

“It seems to me the responsible thing would be to continue paying all these loans,” Bean said.

“We’d still have the money,” he said. "It would still be in our funds, but we would not be spending it on material things like this.”

His fellow councilmen reasoned, however, that the loans were being taken care of and might be repaid ahead of schedule.