Sure,
there are some tense moments during every councilmember’s career, but this week probably
topped them all — budget negotiations were in full swing this Wednesday, Sept.
4 — and as we go to press, to the victor go the spoils of voter appreciation.
Every councilmember came to the table today with a wish list — some a mile
long and just as expensive, some practical, some beyond the pale. And as the
evening closed, what was left on the table is the beginning of consensus on
this year’s city finances, and the likelihood of approval come Sept. 9, 10, and
11, when the council votes on the 1996-97 city budget.
There have been few grumblings about City Manager Jesus Garza’s proposed
budget of
$1.2 billion — Austin’s loss of financial power, with boom times
putting the squeeze on city services and suburban sprawl stealing away the
city’s tax base, seems to have cured the council of big dreams. Most are taking
their gruel with minor complaints. Even the proposed tax increase of
three-quarters of a cent to 52.51 cents per $100 valuation, (which would add
approximately one dollar per year to the tax bill on a $100,000 home according
to the latest calculations by city staff), seems to be taken in stride;
Councilmembers Daryl Slusher and Jackie Goodman are the lone voices against the
increase as they look for ways to eliminate it.
The budget crunch this year comes in the wake of a review of the city’s
Electric Utility Department (EUD) and its competitive potential, performed by
the Price Waterhouse consulting firm. The firm recommended a strict reduction
of the annual transfer from the EUD to the city’s General Fund, from $60
million to $30 million within five years. The EUD transfer makes up 20% of the
general fund — a huge chunk of the city’s yearly budget. Despite the Price
Waterhouse recommendation, the city manager proposed the usual $60 million
transfer, but reminded councilmembers of the need to begin reducing next year.
Even so, some councilmembers are not only relieved to keep the transfer at the
same level, but others, namely Eric Mitchell and Beverly Griffith, want to
increase it to the full $64 million allowable, to reinstate social programs
abandoned over the last few years.
This issue, the Chronicle looks at what each councilmember brings to
the bargaining table as the search for extra money from unused programs or
vacant positions continues. Last week, for instance, the city manager freed up
$600,000 for use this year, and the funds will be anted up for an all-out
council scramble — certainly there will be more money up for grabs as the
budget vote approaches. The programs that seem favored for additional funding
at this point are improvements to the city’s planning system as recommended by
Goodman’s Citizens’ Planning Committee, and a limited number of Parks &
Recreation Department youth activities designed to reduce juvenile crime (see
the wish list below for Griffith and Mayor Pro Tem Gus Garcia). Any suggestions
from councilmembers to cut more programs from this already bare-bones budget
proposal may seem rather mean-spirited at this point, but they will all be
considered in the coming swap meet.
Mayor Bruce Todd
Mayor Todd has only one wish on his list: Reduce the electric utilitytransfer. “It’s his number-one priority,” says the mayor’s aide Trey Salinas.
“The mayor knows we have tough choices, and he doesn’t know which programs [on
other councilmembers’ wish lists], if any, he’ll support. He’s even thinking we
should increase the tax rate to reduce the transfer. In the real world, he’d
like to have lower taxes, but we’re still in the utility business,” says
Salinas. Asked if the mayor thinks there is any support on the council to
reduce the transfer at this stage, Salinas says “maybe not — but [the mayor’s]
got to continue to say what’s right. The council talked a big game about
getting competitive, but we haven’t done anything. He’s been discussing it with
the other councilmembers, but some of them, like Beverly [Griffith] and Eric
[Mitchell], want to increase [the transfer] to $64 million.”
Eric Mitchell
Mitchell’s recommendations, he says, will add a stunning $6.5 million to thecity’s general fund — without cutting programs. How? By dipping further into
the sacred cash cow that is the city’s electric utility. An indulgent move, to
say the least, what with city staff and several of Mitchell’s allies on the
dais wringing their hands over how to reduce that transfer. While he
acknowledges that the utility needs to become more competitive to survive in a
future unregulated market, Mitchell stresses the city’s continued dependence on
the transfer provided by the city’s most lucrative department. “We must become
more competitive and make tough decisions on how we operate the utility. This
will mean reducing the transfer to a more acceptable level in the future —
but, we cannot afford to attempt to get there overnight.”
Mitchell’s $6.5 million would come exclusively at the expense of EUD. To
compensate the department, Mitchell suggests reducing the city’s Energy
Conservation Rebate Program by $9 million by deleting the commercial programs
and associated administrative expenses. (This, despite Mitchell having, in the
past, taken advantage of the rebate program himself — twice.) Mitchell wants
to stop charging non-revenue city departments like Parks & Recreation for
electric service, and cut their budgets or reprogram the funds. And while other
departments would continue to pay for electric service, the money wouldn’t go
to the EUD. “Water/Wastewater, Electric, Aviation, Convention Center, Utility
Customer Service Office, and Street Lighting would continue to be charged and
would provide approximately $2.5 million for other priority needs in the
General Fund,” he suggests.
Leaving aside the fact that the $2.5 million addition may not be
possible, here are Mitchell’s $6.5 million funding recommendations: $2 million
to the Austin Police Department for overtime, staffing, and computers; $120,000
for the Development Review & Inspection Team; $900,000 for the conversion
of the city’s fill-and-draw swimming pools to filter systems; $500,000 for PARD
youth programs; $1.2 million for an over-65 tax reduction; $1.7 million to
eliminate the proposed tax increase.
Jackie Goodman
Goodman’s wish list focuses on the full funding of 11 recommendations from theCitizens’ Planning Committee (CPC), a group she helped create two years ago, in
order to suggest changes to the city’s bureaucratic development review system.
It would seem all her wishes may come true this year, now that the city manager
has found additional funding. When the proposed budget came out in July, only
four CPC recommendations were fully funded, and the fight was on for Goodman,
as well as for Slusher, who also supports the proposals, to rally city staff
and the rest of the council to consider the CPC projects a priority. Some of
the most important aspects of the 11 proposals were left out, says Goodman’s
aide Ann Denkler, including long-range traffic planning, which will cost
$368,000. A portion of the newly found $600,000 now available in unallocated
funds could be used to fund the traffic-planning project, should the council
vote to do so.
Other Goodman items include: $388,000 to the Parks & Recreation Department
(PARD) to reinstate funding for Pioneer Farms and for the horticulture unit,
and to put cultural contracts administration funding back into the department’s
budget instead of taking it out of arts funding provided by the hotel/motel bed
tax; $34,700 for new carpet at the public library; $75,160 for a “social
service program housed in the financial services department,” according to
Denkler (she would not elaborate); $2.1 million for full funding of the city’s
Energy Conservation Rebate Program; a reduction in the tax increase.
Mayor Pro Tem Gus Garcia and Beverly Griffith Garcia and Griffith have teamed up on what they call a “Social Fabric
Initiative” to expand PARD programs this year, and want to add $1.4 million in
costs to the 1996-97 budget to fund it. The two describe the initiative as a
“collaborative effort” between the region’s governmental agencies, and they
have already met with Travis County and AISD elected representatives and
community leaders to gather support — although so far, the collaboration has
not extended beyond verbal support into a financial commitment from the county
and AISD that would really make it work. As the two councilmembers state in
their Aug. 26 letter to the mayor and their colleagues on the dais, “We have
not identified the funding sources for this initiative and hope that we can
work with the City Manager to carefully craft a plan to fund this
initiative.”
The individual programs, described in last week’s article on PARD’s budget
cuts, include:
* $328,000 for the Youth & Adult Enrichment program — to increase hours at
three of the city’s Recreation Centers during the school day to provide three
programs targeted at kids aged 3-5 and their parents, and to provide morning
fitness classes and intergenerational and late-night programs.
* $50,000 to fund sports leagues, special events and rec center classes for St.
John’s neighborhood residents.
* $381,440 for the Summer Playground Program, which would increase the number
of playgrounds from 24 to 50 and provide site supervision for an additional
1,500 youths.
* $410,000 for the Community Outreach After-School Program; targeted at 9,000
“latch-key” youths, it would include nature, art, health, and computer
activities, as well as tutoring.
* $150,000 for Non-Traditional Programs, which offer tutoring and incentives
for youths to stay in school; classes in job readiness, health education, and
life skills would be expanded in 10 additional rec center sites to reach kids
aged 12-19.
* $126,800 to reinstate the Summer Teen Recreation Academy, to provide
employment opportunities, gym sites, and cultural activities for about 600
teens in the summer.
Ronney Reynolds
Councilmember Reynolds says he doesn’t have a budget “wish list” like some ofhis colleagues, and that instead, he wants to concentrate on “keeping the
electric utility.” Reynolds helped scuttle the mayor’s plan to put the EUD on
the auction block earlier this year, citing his preference to keep it public
until the all the city’s options were analyzed. Presumably, this includes the
possibility of a merger with the Lower Colorado River Authority, an option some
say Reynolds would support.
In the meantime, the councilmember wants to reduce the EUD transfer from the
allowable 12% to 8% in the next five years, a slower rate than city consultants
recommend, and reduce the utility’s debt by cutting down on the energy
conservation program. EUD will pay $194 million in debt service this year.
“Every one dollar in annual debt reduces the [utility’s] gross revenue amount
by $1.50,” says Reynolds. “That’s the reason debt is so important.”
Daryl Slusher
Slusher may be the lone councilmember to hand over a wish list with fundingsuggestions that do not include increasing the electric utility transfer. In
fact, Slusher says he is offering up $4 million in potential revenue and only
$1.9 million on his wish list. “I’m offering twice as much money as I’m asking
for,” he says, “and trying to show how we can fund our wish list and not do a
tax increase.”
The $4 million includes: $800,000 in road-repair projects that could be paid
with Build Greater Austin funds rather than through the city’s Department of
Public Works & Transportation; $1 million in transfers to the general fund
from surplus revenue held by the city’s Water/Wastewater Utility; $750,000 in
anticipated revenue for the Austin Police Department from beefed-up
bill-collection efforts; and $1.5 million in federal Disproportionate Fund
monies for indigent care that was not counted by city staff in writing the
proposed budget. Slusher says staff told him the federal funds were “shaky,”
but a check with state officials confirmed that the $1.5 million has been
allocated for Austin.
Slusher’s wish list, on the other hand, includes:
* $260,000 to restore reduced funding for indigent health care, and $62,000 for
dental-care funding;
* $100,000 to restore youth employment programs (also supported by Austin
Interfaith community organization);
* $150,000 to reinstate PARD’s horticulture unit;
* $96,000 to restore cultural contracts administration funding from the general
fund — staff has recommended that it come out of the arts funding allocated
from the hotel/motel bed tax;
* $750,000 to the APD, “to be used at Chief [Elizabeth] Watson’s discretion,”
says Slusher, but he would like to see it go towards restoring the city’s
neighborhood police centers;
* $600,000 to fund all 11 CPC recommendations.
Slusher also says he will support Garcia and Griffith’s Social Fabric
Initiative, and will meet with Griffith to look for funding.
n
Deals may be cut this week on which of these programs will be funded, and
which won’t be, but there won’t be another public hearing on the budget or on
the result of these negotiations. The public will, however, be given an
opportunity to speak during Citizens’ Communication this Thursday, Sept. 5, and
during the budget votes on Sept. 9, 10, and 11. And as always, you can contact
your councilmembers directly — call 499-2000 to be connected. n
This article appears in September 6 • 1996 and September 6 • 1996 (Cover).