CLEARLAKE — Members of the Clearlake City Council/Redevelopment Agency met Thursday morning for a special joint workshop to review line-by-line the draft budget for Fiscal Year 2008-09. Members will continue the study session at 1 p.m. today in Council Chambers at City Hall.
According to Neiman, the city is facing a number of financial challenges. A number of those problems were solved throughout this past year. Staff is making a number of recommendations to solve other problems this fiscal year.
“The good news is (the budget) is balanced,” Neiman said. “If the council agrees with all the recommendations, we will have a surplus of $89,000 in the General Fund.”
Neiman reported that the city will be operating on a cash basis for the next fiscal year. “We have changed the budget and general ledger to a cash basis,” he said. “This means the fund balances are based on cash rather than cash and receivables. If this would have been done in the past the Housing Fund would have shown a substantial negative cash balance and the council and public would have asked questions and it”s a possibility that some of the issues we are dealing with today on the Housing Fund could have been avoided.”
Thursday”s study session included review of revenue estimates and several city departments including elected officials, city clerk, city attorney, city administrator, city finance, non-departmental, planning, the police department and the senior center. As a result of the discussion, a $6000 savings was calculated with budget cuts to non-departmental advertising and maintaining the same contribution to the Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce.
A positive aspect about the budget being proposed is that there is an increase in the capital project budget Neiman said. “Last year we had $2.2 million in the capital project budget. This year we are budgeting $2.5 million,” he said, adding that the increase is due in part to money carried over from the recent six-mile street rehabilitation project.
Today”s study session will begin with discussion of the engineering department and continue with the remaining departments operating within city government. The Public Works, Parks and Street Maintenance departments are expected to be covered among today”s topics.
Neiman reported that staff is to provide a recommendation that would result in annual estimated savings of $60,500. “We currently have two employees who maintain the parks and other public grounds and four employees who are responsible for maintaining 115 miles of streets and all the drainage facilities,” Neiman said. “There is much less maintenance work associated with the parks in the winter compared to the summer. It is costing the city $55.42 per hour in personnel to maintain the two parks. A more cost effective approach would be to hire a Maintenance I Worker and full-time temporary help in the summer.”
The public is invited and encourage to attend today”s special joint workshop. Opportunities for comment will be available. “Basically, what we do with the council is go through the budget line item by line item. Last year we spent about nine or 10 hours doing that,” Neiman said. “If the public has a comment they can make a comment when that line comes up.”
Public hearing for adoption of fiscal year of 2008-2009 budget is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday Oct. 23 at Clearlake City Hall during the council”s regular meeting.
Contact Denise Rockenstein at drockenstein@clearlakeobserver.com.
