A Funny Thing Happened Thursday...

BUDGET TO BE DECIDED TUESDAY - MAYBE
Tuesday Costa Mesa's City Council will tackle the 2010-2011 municipal budget in open session and try to come up with a balanced budget by the end of the evening. This is going to be brutal!




"DIFFERENT" BUDGET WORKSHOP
Last Thursday I attended the Community Budget Workshop, held in Conference Room 1A at City Hall and hosted by City Manager Allan Roeder and Budget and Research Officer Bobby Young. They were prepared to present the slide show they used as a conversation guide the previous Tuesday at the council study session, but that never happened. From the very first question it was clear that the group was eager to address specific issues.

LARGER, DIVERSE TURNOUT
In previous years only a few people attended this meeting - maybe two or three of us. Last year we had a larger turnout, when a half-dozen residents and other interested parties found some time to meander through. This year it was different. There were nine attendees from diverse backgrounds and a shared concern for the fiscal condition of our city. There were three of us "old timers" - attendees who make this meeting each year. There were several for whom this was their first such meeting. There were a couple folks who are ardent Mansoor-majority supporters and a couple of us who clearly are not. There were city committee and commission members, a couple former and perhaps future council candidates, a city volunteer/activist and a couple city staffers who are directly affected by the budget difficulties, although neither of them will be laid-off at this time.

BROADER DISCUSSION
What was billed as an informational meeting during which Roeder and Young would impart budget knowledge took a strange turn early on. The meeting morphed into a discussion, rather than a tutoring session, covering budget questions but also broader community and leadership issues, as well.

A VERY SPECIAL EXPERIENCE
This particular cross section of the community somehow just clicked and the result was not just a couple hours of budget numbers, charts, graphs and a PowerPoint presentation, but four hours of lively debate of very important, mostly budget-related, issues. Roeder, as is usually the case, began jotting notes at the beginning and had filled a half dozen pages by the time we eventually wrapped up at 10:30 that night. And, amazingly, no one seemed particularly concerned that we'd managed to miss the entire Laker/Celtics game.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY A ROADBLOCK
I'm not going to try to cover all the points of discussion, but a fair amount of dialogue dealt with the unwillingness in recent years by the current and most recent previous city councils to even consider additional funding sources. Mention was made that the reasoning was more philosophical than financial in orientation - some members of the council just flat don't want new or increased taxes based on their political beliefs, even though our city is close to going down for the count.

FUNDING SOURCES MUST BE EXPANDED
We discussed the many times in the recent past when councils - including several of this current crop - just discarded out of hand any increase in the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) and Business License Fees, both of which require council approval to place them on the ballot. There was unanimity among the group that the council simply must give the voters a chance to be heard on these issues in November. Both items should be increased significantly - perhaps a 3% bump in the TOT and some significant restructuring of the Business License fees must be used to generate revenue.

EMS FEES
Also discussed at length were Emergency Medical fees - an issue that was heard not too long ago by this council and rejected. Serious consideration should be given to that issue, too.

BARGAINING UNIT RESISTANCE
Because the city faces a $16 million budget deficit and the present plan to layoff more than 75 full and part time workers only gets us half way there, negotiations are taking place with the employee bargaining units to try to reduce the remaining $8 million hole. Comments were made by employees present that there is a feeling among the staff this year that they should wait to see what kind of action the council takes regarding new funding sources before they consider extending the current furlough plan or any other method of reducing labor costs. The use of Fund Balance to bridge the time between when a balanced budget must be signed and when the bargaining units agree to participate may be necessary. However, that's almost a dry hole now, so further lay-offs are almost assured if an agreement is not reached.

CLOSE CITY HALL A DAY PER WEEK?
Among the things that were discussed were the possibility of closing City Hall one day per week, or every other week, which would be a de facto furlough plan for all employees except, probably, the public safety staff.

RECREATION PROGRAMS FIRST TO BE HIT
Roeder discussed the perception that recreation programs and staff seemed to be the first to be hit by funding reductions. He explained that almost all the other employee groups and programs have one or more mandates connected to them imposed by State of Federal laws. Recreation has no such constraints.

SOME IDEAS MAY GO FORWARD TO COUNCIL
At the end I left feeling confident that Roeder will carry some of the suggestions forward to the City Council by way of his staff report Tuesday.

MORE DISCUSSION NEEDED
As the meeting ended many of those in attendance were still pumped up about the process and suggestions were made to convene again as an ad hoc organization to continue the discussions. Names and numbers were exchanged toward that end. We'll see if a good night's sleep and the passage of a little time throws cold water on that enthusiasm. I hope not, because much was accomplished by the healthy, spirited debate by that small, manageable group.

CROSS YOUR FINGERS
And now we mark time until Tuesday night. If the council doesn't come up with a balanced budget that night there is still time - a little over two weeks - in which they can continue to hash things out. July 1 is the deadline and the clock is ticking.