9. SR 08-28-1995 - Laserfiche WebLink

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• change is authorized by the City Council, then the property tax for the General Fund goes up approximately $237,000. With the above scenario, there are no additional monies available for typical inflationary increases in expenditures, new employees, new programs or new capital outlay purchases above what is typically financed. Additionally, we may not, as a city, see 10 percent increases in our NTC on an annual basis. Therefore, our main challenge for the next few years is how to finance increasing operating expenses with limited additional annual revenues. When the City Council says "hold the line" on the tax rate, they are also saying hold the line on employee expenses. The city budget issues are getting more complex each year. There are no magic answers for how to balance the desire for low taxes with need for more employees to provide better services, along with the city treating its employees fair in wages and benefits. The City Council has discussed the police budget a number of times in the past. The police budget typically is a focal point of our budget discussions as it is the biggest single department in the city. A previously distributed fact sheet showed the police department as being 33 percent of the total of the 1987 budget and this amount increasing to over 37 percent of the total in 1994. Additionally, as the Council knows, about 85 percent of the police • budget is personnel. Police Personal Services is over $1.1 million in 1996. Accordingly, when we talk about controlling expenses, we are talking about personnel and, mainly, the police department personnel. This certainly is an oversimplification of the issue, but police personnel is a major factor in our annual budget consideration. If the City Council wants to keep the tax rate unchanged and allow the city tax base catch up to the growth of city government, then we should limit additional new employees for a year or so. This may be difficult when we are talking about a rental inspection program, a fire inspection program, a COPS FAST program, a mechanic or laborer in the street department, and clerical support staff for the police and other departments. All city departments can do a better job with additional employees. However, sometimes departments can't always get what they want and departments must do the best they can with the resources that are allocated. Additionally, there are other efficiencies that can be realized within departments based on new technology. The Council will see this in the 1996 budget proposal whereby $20,000 is being requested by the police department to put personal computers into the police vehicles. These "one time" type of expenditures (or financed over a few years) improve the efficiency within the department and sometimes need to be financed in lieu of additional personnel. C7