Lost in Space

Think of the city budget as the USS Enterprise under Klingon siege, says City Manager Toby Futrell, hitting the nitty-gritty in the city's financial forecast. Capt. Kirk can demand Warp 10 from his trusty engineer, but with fires everywhere below deck, we know the refrain, delivered in that unmistakably thick brogue: But captain, she can't take any mooooooore!

"City staff is that beleaguered engineer," said Futrell. "City staff is Scotty. We're putting out those fires, and we're producing that Warp 10 … but that Warp 10 is not reliable; it's weak. … We don't have the internal controls we need. … We're going to need to reinvest."

This analogy was used to sell what Futrell called core service investments – more than $7 million in "growth related" and "internal control" dollars. She says they're needed to keep pace with growth, but, with respect to the sparse (Vulcan-esque?) picture she's painted elsewhere, it might be a hard sell.

Befitting the Star Trek theme, the financial forecast was full of dramatic, positively Shatnerian pauses: The outlook is continued cautious optimism … "maybe with a little more emphasis on the caution; sales tax is "growing … but volatile."

Bottom line: Futrell says, "The bad news is that we are projecting increases in all of our cost drivers – higher than what we showed you in 2008. These increases result in a larger gap that needs to be closed in 2008, a larger gap than what we projected last year." And putting property tax at the higher "rollback rate" closes the divide some but still leaves $16.6 million in the gap. That's a lot of dilithium crystals.

But, with city staff keeping the numbers in a deathlike grip until the moment of the presentation, who knows? Bear in mind the deficit includes Futrell's oh-so-urgent $7 million investments. We haven't even delved into some of the forecast's other odd aspects, like ditching the Austin Police Department's current salary increase for a 4.5% across-the-board hike for everyone, civil service and civilian employees alike. If we were truly jaded, we might suggest a bleak picture's being painted right now so in a couple months, council can ride in looking like Capt. James Tiberius Kirk about to take Kahn's ass out.

If you think about it, it's highly logical.