ShawneeDispatch.com

Tough decisions face the Shawnee City Council this month as it considers the city’s 2010 budget.

The downtrodden economy has inflicted a heavy blow to Shawnee’s budgets. The city already has made strides to operate as economically efficient as possible in recent years, cutting planned municipal projects and the city’s street resurfacing program to save money. Now, the Council must consider major service reductions in its final meetings for the 2010 budget this month.

Carol Gonzales, city manager, said she wanted to ensure that expenditures did not exceed revenues in the city’s budget by 2012, and that the city maintain 30 percent reserve funds in its general fund. But to do this, the Council will have to create a smaller city government and cut the services the city currently provides.

Gonzales laid out the situation in a memo to the Council in mid-June.

“We are out of one-time budget fixes, and the Governing Body now has to make decisions that raise revenue or impose significant service-level reductions that will directly impact the citizens and in many cases result in employee layoffs,” she stated.

Using revenue estimates and financial forecasts for the next three years, city staff presented three budget options for Council members to consider at the June 16 Public Works and Safety Committee meeting.

The first option was to assume there would be no new revenue in the next three years, but the city must somehow increase the amount of money it puts in its debt services fund and public safety fund in 2011 and 2012.

The city would continue to hold open vacant positions and there would continue to be no program for street resurfacing until 2011. It would cut the volunteer firefighter program, saving $30,000, and would significantly reduce stormwater drainage projects, as well as deferring vehicle, equipment and technology replacements, along with facility maintenance.

In 2010, the city would have to find $500,000 in city services or programs to cut from the budget; in 2011, it would have to cut another $700,000 and in 2012, another $600,000.

A second budget scenario presented to the Council would require revenue enhancements; for this option, staff has suggested a 5 percent franchise fee for natural gas and electric bills be reinstated for residences beginning April 1, 2010.

Most of the items from the first option would hold true, but the city would not have to find $500,000 to cut in 2010, more stormwater projects could be completed, and a larger street resurfacing program could begin in 2011. However, the city would need to cut $300,000 in 2011 and 2012.

A final option would require both finance fees to be reinstated and either a levy increase of one mill or an increase in the stormwater utility in 2011. A mill is $1 in taxes for every $1,000 of assessed property valuation. The third option would mean the city likely would not have to cut programs in before 2013.

If the Council chooses the first or second option, the city presented a list of the type of programming cuts that could be made.

• Closing Shawnee Town was an option that would save the city $340,671, eliminating three employees.

• Reducing stormwater maintenance operations efforts could save up to $651,000 and also would eliminate three employees, but of course would mean many flooding problems in the city would continue.

• Closing the pools and canceling aquatic programs would save the city only $291,200 because they generate enough money to pay for $749,400 of their total cost.

Another option was to find four staff positions to cut from the planning, development and codes departments, which would save about $324,000.

Other suggestions included reducing street sweeping by $67,000, which could result in fines from the EPA; eliminating the crossing guard program, saving $130,000; cutting the pet licensing program, with would save less than $30,000; and reducing codes enforcement to the bare minimum, eliminating two positions to save $113,604.

Shelley Fabac, chair of the Parks & Recreation Advisory Board, spoke at the June 16 meeting, asking the Council not to close the pools or Shawnee Town, some of the biggest draws to Shawnee.

“Please don’t close some of the good we’ve started here,” Fabac told the Council.

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