The Daily Hustle: 6/9/10

Once more, unto the breach!

City Manager Marc Ott delivered a “budget development update” to the City Council this week, a formal initiation of potential budget cuts needed to balance the city's sheets for fiscal year 2011. And it's deja vu all over again.

Ott's memo outlines some $28.5 million in potential cuts. With a deficit estimated between $11 and $28 million, dependent on the property tax rate council selects, Ott presented a “menu” of 39 reductions, predicated on last fiscal year’s round of proposed cuts, totaling $9.3 million, and a list of “unmet service demands” – previously allocated funding for programs and council priorities not yet implemented – totaling $19.2 million and 197.5 new positions.

Of the $45 million “menu” of proposals Ott offered last year, some $28.3 million have been adopted, leaving $16.7 million in potential cuts left over. “However,” Ott writes, “several of the remaining menu options are no longer viable,” like Fire Department salary cuts, as a new contract's been negotiated since. And of the remaining $9.3 million in proposed cuts, many “present difficult choices that would negatively impact services – in some cases significantly. My sincere hope is that the continued efforts of our departments to improve operational efficiencies, combined with the improvements that we are beginning to see in the local economy, will enable the City to balance its budget without further disruptions to services.” Reductions include suspension of the Trail of Lights, eliminating co-sponsorship of special events, reducing park pool and library hours, delaying the 2011 police cadet class one year, converting two fire engines to medical response units.

As for the unmet service demands, Ott writes “The financial forecast for the General Fund, presented to Council in April, was based on funding requirements for existing programs and previously approved Council initiatives. As part of our internal forecasting process, department directors were also tasked with identifying and analyzing operational requirements that they consider to be unmet.” These include cuts to parks and pools maintenance, police positions, council’s “four person staffing” resolution on fire engines, Code Compliance, internal departments like Human Resources, and more.

The city’s first public budget forum is scheduled Tuesday, June 15, 6pm at the Austin Convention Center; feedback can also be submitted online.

What the hell else is happening?

On the city calendar: The African American Resource Advisory Commission meets at the Street-Jones Building, Room 400A, 1000 E. 11th, 5:30pm.

The Water and Wastewater Commission gathers at Waller Creek Plaza, Room 104, 625 E. 10th

The Austin Community Technology & Telecommunications Commission gets together in the Board and Commission room at City Hall, 310 W. Second, 6:30pm

The Solid Waste Advisory Commission meets in council chambers, City Hall, 6:30pm.

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