CC Minutes - 01/22/07 Work Session

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auditor and police staffing meant at least $1 million of annualized costs going forward. He said that other additions approved by the council, such as the office of sustainability and increases in the cost of some services were trying to be resolved in a budget that met the needs of FY08, but established a pattern for a prudent, sustainable budget over the next several years. He said that process would take longer than the current fiscal year to complete and was a discussion the council and Budget Committee needed to have before development of the FY09 budget. Mr. Zelenka asked why the levy did not cover the entire funding needed for library services over the next four years in order to avoid making any cuts. City Manager Taylor said the council’s intent, supported by the voters, was not to continue funding library services through levies but there was no predictable revenue stream in the future that would allow maintenance of the current mix of services across the board. He said the City faced a number of budgeting dilemmas including how to absorb half of library services into the General Fund, how to fund recreation services no longer supported by the school levy, fund police patrol staffing, park maintenance, the transportation system, and other items identified for attention in the near term. Mr. Zelenka said his understanding of the police staffing priority was not to increase staffing beyond what had already been decided upon but rather to direct resource priorities to community policing and property crime reduction. Ms. Bettman asserted this was the established process. She said the next Budget Committee meeting was February 7, 2007. She notified people at the last Budget Committee meeting of her intent to make the motion because there was not time to consider it at the meeting. She said that giving the City Manager direction on the proposed budget as soon as possible was something the council and the Budget Committee had requested in the past. She said the more than $7 million added to the budget, when weighed against things like public safety and library services, would not have emerged from the priority process if one had been done. Ms. Taylor stated that the time to discuss the budget was before it was in a book in front of the council. She reiterated that the City needed new sources of revenue such as the Portland business tax to avoid financial emergencies. She hoped that eventually new sources of revenue that were equitable would be considered. Mr. Zelenka supported the motion because when he was campaigning for the library levy he told people that the levy was being reduced by half and implicit in that was an understanding that library services would be maintained at their current level. He questioned why the levy would not have been for a larger percentage if cuts were going to be considered. Ms. Ortiz supported the motion with the thought that the issue would still go before the Budget Committee. She felt that the motion simply directed the City Manager to provide that scenario but she expected that other scenarios would be provided to the Budget Committee. Ms. Solomon pointed out that the motion did not request other scenarios; it only directed the City Manager to hold library services harmless in the proposed budget. Mayor Piercy commented that if, in fact, the motion simply stated it was the wish of the council to hold libraries harmless and work toward that goal, which she felt was already the City Manager’s intention in MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 22, 2007 Page 4 Work Session