I presented my proposed City budget for 2006-2007 to the City Council on Tuesday night at their pre-meeting workshop. For the most part, the Council was pretty much on board with my proposal, which was:
- a general tax levy increase of just under 5%
- the creation of a new Street Lighting Utility funded by a new street lighting fee
- the creation of a new rental housing inspection program funded by a new rental housing license fee
- implementing a new Housing & Redevelopment Authority levy to fund some of the City’s housing and economic development activities
- maintaining most City services at their current service levels
- ramping down the City human services operations and grant funding programs
I did say the Council was “pretty much” on board. I think the one area where I sensed they were not fully on board with the budget proposal was the proposal to ramp down our commitment and funding of human services personnel and activities. The Council asked me to take another look at that part of my budget proposal for 2006-2007. So I will.
I am going to prepare two budget scenarios for the Council to take another look at between now and September 6, which is the next date that the Council must take an action on the budget. One scenario will include the human services budget line items I excluded from my original budget proposal and increase our tax levy to fund them. The other scenario will include the human services budget items I excluded from my original budget proposal and decrease other General Fund budget line items in order to keep total expenses the same as what I proposed in my original budget proposal. In the end, we might do a little of each.
The Council’s next move on the budget will be September 6, when they must approve the preliminary tax levy. The preliminary tax levy is the highest levy we can consider levying this fall. Once the preliminary tax levy is set, the levy can only be decreased, not increased from that point forward.
After that, we tinker with exact line items until we get the budget completely finished. The Council approves the final budget for 2006-2007 in December.
