Agenda - 07/10/12 Eugene City Council and EWEB Joint Meeting

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City of Eugene, Oregon Fiscal Year 2013 Budget Message Mayor Piercy, City Councilors, Colleagues, Members of the Eugene Community: The FY13 Proposed Budget is framed by an ever-changing economy and several years of hard work to live within our means. Despite the lingering impacts of the recession, our approach has remained constant: maintain community services, minimize impacts on City employees and achieve a stable budget. Our strategies have aligned the budgets behind the Council’s vision and goals, as expressed through Eugene Counts, invested in the future prosperity of the community, minimized fee increases and maintained a responsible savings account. In meeting these strategies, employees have found efficiencies, responded to Council direction to move toward goals that meet community needs, engaged the Budget Committee, and worked with area partners to find new ways to provide a sustainable set of services. The FY13 Proposed Budget ensures that we make progress toward achieving a structurally balanced budget by FY14. We’ve kept our sights on being good stewards and on minimizing impacts to employees and the community. Fee increases are not proposed to close the General Fund gap. Community investments continue, and a responsible reserve is maintained. And new partnerships are contemplated that ensure the viability and sustainability of several regional services. We have focused on being the best at what we can do, rather than on what we can no longer afford to do. While our work that began with the economic downturn four years ago has reduced General Fund expenditures by $20 million, the economy has not improved and we continue to face financial challenges that make identifying a path to long term financial health more important than ever. In February, the Six-Year General Fund Forecast was updated and as we anticipated last spring, the City is facing a deficit. As shown in the graph below, expenditures continue to outpace revenues through the forecast period. The General Fund is facing a gap of $7 million that must be managed or reserves will be depleted by FY14. More detail on the General Fund Forecast is included in Attachment A. FY13FY18 GeneralFundForecast $160,000,000 $150,000,000 $140,000,000 $130,000,000 $120,000,000 $110,000,000 $100,000,000 FY12FY13FY14FY15FY16FY17FY18 RevenuesExpenditures