Second in a series
Re “City Hall Likes What It Sees To When It Looks in the Muir”
[img]847|left|Jeff Muir||no_popup[/img]To hear Jeff Muir tell the story of his welcome — needed — return to City Hall, to address a $3 million to $6 million budget deficit , his U-turn after a five-month hiatus was accidental all the way.
Culver City’s first and third Chief Financial Officer was lured back to Inglewood City Hall last Thanksgiving, and then something ironic occurred about 12 weeks later.
Even with a significant pay hike and wider responsibilities than he had in his first term in Inglewood, Mr. Muir soon was wondering if he had made a mistake leaving Culver City.
Meanwhile, a slight sense of panic was setting in at City Hall. City Manager Mark Scott, who added Mr. Muir’s job to his, abruptly resigned in early February.
Suddenly, with two jobs to fill, with City Hall in flux, and no one nearby who could supervise and organize the budget that needed to be devised for the coming fiscal year, the two camps began thinking about a remarriage.
Mr. Muir, who can pack all the words he speaks in a week into a thimble, left Culver City on cordial terms, so returning could be engineered smoothly.
And so, within three weeks of Mr. Scott’s departure announcement, the two sides met.
Question: Who approached whom?
“Kind of both of us,” Mr. Muir said. “We had a conversation that ended up getting talked about further. Just kind of happened. There was no…
“It was just the timing.
“I was fortunate I had this little window. It just worked out better for me.
“I went over there (to Inglewood) to get some things done. I am happy I got them finished.
“In the long term, though, this was the better decision for me.”
What was the clinching action that brought you back here?
“There wasn’t a clincher. I made a determination some months into the Inglewood return that long-term, Inglewood probably was not best for me.
“Suddenly, this window opened in Culver City.”
When you returned to Culver City last week, had much changed here financially?
“Not much other than the continuing decline of the economy. Revenue-wise, things are probably a little worse. Generally, they are where they were when I left last November. There was some projection of a modest recovery starting this year. But the recovery has just not panned out.”
Mr. Muir said that between the attendant fuss over Mr. Scott’s unexpected resignation and the recent election season, “I can pretty much pick up where I left off.”
What about the budget deficit that is between $$3 million and $6 million? How liquid are those figures?
“They are always somewhat liquid. You adopt a budget, and that is your best guess at the time. Now we are two months away from a new fiscal year. Revenues are poorer than ‘way back when we adopted this budget. Expenditures are about where we thought they would be. They are pretty consistent with what is in the budget.
“Generally, this puts us a little worse off.
“The actual deficit we forecast for ’10-’11 looked to be in the $6 million range. We have a structural deficit. We don’t feel this is a number that is going away. We have long-term issues that are going to creep into the picture, such as (the pension fund) CalPERS’ increases based on their tremendous losses. We have already talked about this in other reports. “We have deferred maintenance issues throughout the city and some investment we ultimately will have to make.
“So we really need to take a look at the operating deficit, and we are going to try to solve most of that this year.
“We will leave a portion for next year, with the hope that some of it can be solved (meanwhile) through negotiations” with the city’s half-dozen employee unions.
