[Editor’s Note: The City Council’s once-postponed selection of its first Financial Advisory Committee, which tentatively had been scheduled for the Tuesday, March 26, meeting, now has been delayed until Monday, April 8. March 26 is the Second Night of Passover.]
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Mayor Weissman. Photo, Getty Images.
The longer Mayor Andy Weissman listened to the mid-year budget update from Chief Financial Officer Jeff Muir at last night’s City Council meeting, the sunnier he felt.
The dark days of last year’s gloomy pre-election report – that City Hall was bathing in an $8 million structural deficit – seemed as long ago as the year before the Renaissance.
“We are not flush, and we are a long way from where we once were, but there are signs of life, and they are encouraging,” Mr. Weissman said.
The mayor calls his perked-up attitude “optimism tempered with reality.
“We fell so far (fiscally), and we are slowly improving. We have a long way to go, though, and much further out would be improving on where we were. At least we are heading in an upward direction, although it is incremental in how steep the rise is
“It is not very high. But it is noteworthy that staff, and the community by approving the Transit Occupancy Tax and the half-cent sales tax, all have contributed to the city’s improving budget picture.”
The rally has been so impressive that, once Measure Y, the half-cent sales tax increase, goes into effect in three weeks, the mayor projected that City Hall’s once imposing deficit may be down to as little as $1 million by the Fiscal New Year’s Eve, June 30.
Why the turnaround?
“The turnaround has been the economy,” Mr. Weissman said, and then he went on to list several hometown factors:
- “City staff has been very cost-conscious.
- “We have allowed (City Hall) positions to remain unfilled, without dramatically, if at all, affecting service delivery.
- “Those unfilled positions also go to the bottom line of savings.
- “Combine hammering away at expenses, reduction in personnel, the improving (national) economy, which helps support increases in the business area, in the Transit Occupancy Tax, in the Utility Users Tax… add the fact there are signs of life, and in some cases more than blips on the horizon, and a big difference has been made. We curtailed some of the costs associated with employees, vis-à-vis pension and healthcare costs, and they also contributed to a healthier bottom line for the city.”
Yes, a Comeback
City Hall still is digging out from deep inside the tunnel, Mayor Weissman said, seeking again to stress that Mr. Muir’s report suggested progress rather than triumph.
“We still are faced with a lot of infrastructure costs that are unfunded,” he said, “because we have a lot of infrastructure needs, whether repair of curbs or sidewalks, or patching of streets, or dealing with lights and trees, all of which are part of the looking-forward challenge.
“But with things improving, this should enable us to put money back into capital improvement projects and capital improvement funds, which we have not been able to do over the last number of years. That is because we have been using every dollar we have to support services.
“It was a sobering message (that Mr. Muir, the CFO, delivered) because economic realities continue to confront the city that means it will take many years to get back to where we were.
“But the signs all are pointing in a positive direction. That is way different from previous reporting.”
For example, once the voter-endorsed half-cent sales tax takes effect on April 1, it is expected to net a cool $2 million in the final 90 days of the fiscal year. This is a gift from the skies that not only closely shaves raggedy chin whiskers off the debt but it cheers the worried hearts on all three floors of City Hall.
