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The City Council has the responsibility to review expenditures closely to make sure that the City's budget is actively managed and is not running on auto-pilot. During the budget deliberations over the Fiscal Year 2006-07 budget, the Council spent a lot of time reviewing staff expenditures for things like coffee and other relatively minor expenses. So, it was surprising that the Council decided not to review one of the biggest single expenses in the budget: planned salary increases for sworn Police Department employees. The current labor contract with the Police Officer's Association includes a provision to review the salary increases that were scheduled for the second half of the contract term, however, the Council declined the opportunity to review them. The window of opportunity has now closed, and the increases will go forward. While I am not pointing this out to suggest that the Police should get smaller salary increases, I do think that the Council has a fiscal responsibility to at least take a look at one of its largest single expenditures, especially when the labor contract explicitly provided for such a review. As a Council member, I would take my fiduciary responsibilities seriously and not shy away from reviewing major expenses, even when doing so may not be the easiest thing from a political perspective. Another aspect of the budget that is somewhat troubling is the amount of tax revenue that is locked up in redevelopment debt service. Whenever the City creates a redevelopment zone and issues bonds to fund redevelopment activities, any increase in tax revenue from within the zone must be used to repay the bonds; none of that new revenue can be used to fund services. Going forward, this should be an important consideration when deciding whether or not to create any new redevelopment zones. As a Council member, I would not be in favor of creating new redevelopment zones that would lock up tax revenue increases and make them unavailable to pay for services. While I am not completely ruling out the possibility of creating new redevelopment zones, I would generally oppose them, due to the long term impact of availability of new tax revenues to fund services. I would approach proposals for creation of new redevelopment zones with a very skeptical eye. |