Elizabeth Wilson
Staff Writer
LAKEPORT ? The City of Lakeport”s 2007-2008 budget that is currently in the process of being approved will stop a nearly five-year trend of overspending that city officials have likened to a check book that hasn”t been balanced in two years, but has still been issuing checks.
Plans are underway to pay off the $1.37 million deficit that has gradually built up since 2002. City officials hope that by cinching belts a little, and finding creative ways to underwrite the deficit, they can avoid lay-offs of city of Lakeport employees and reduction in city services.
City Manager Jerry Gillham says that when he first came to Lakeport to take the job over the summer, he was told that the budget hadn”t been balanced in two years. The city is playing catch-up, crunching numbers and closing books in jobs that have lacked bodies for years.
“The budget has really consumed a lot of time since I”ve been here. Now there is myself and Janet (financing employee of the city of Lakeport) who are the only two people who have any background in budget financing and are doing the work. With this amount of dollars, normally a city would have three people working on it,” said Gillham.
The budget this year will essentially freeze all departments in the city hall, according to Gillham.
“Across the board we have no monies to do anything, meaning that we”re not growing but we”re trying to keep people employed and maintain our existing level of services,” he said.
During the 2007-2008 fiscal year, city officials plan to analyze spending and sources of revenue. One such source is Measure I, a half-cent sales tax voters passed four years ago that funds current road improvement projects in Lakeport.
Another source of revenue, also tax based, are redevelopment funds. These funds have shown consistent revenue growth for three to four years and can be used to secure loans?a possibility the city council will look at next year.
Part of the redevelopment loans, a proposed $600,000, would go to pay off the current deficit, as well as allow the redevelopment projects in the downtown core to break ground sooner, thereby getting the most bang for the buck.
There are options other than taking out loans, but they are more costly, Gillham says.
“One such option is starting projects one at a time as money is available. Another is waiting several years to save up enough money before construction crews start breaking ground, but both options can mean the dollar that you earned in 2007 stretches less if you wait five, 10, or even more years to spend it,” he said.
“The cost of everything you need for construction goes up each year, so it is better to take out a loan and do as much of the project at once,” said Gillham.
Along with the current project of analyzing methods that will generate funds, the city council approved fee hikes this summer that amounted to 600 percent increases in some cases, after 13 years of not raising fees at all.
The following year will include an analysis of budget operations within city hall. “We”re taking this year to employ some things like this downtown redevelopment project, and we”re looking at our fees and asking ?why are we operating with a deficit?” well, it”s obvious that we”ve been spending more than we were taking in, but we want to analyze it in more depth than that,” said Gillham.
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