At a regular Jan. 9 meeting, the city’s staff provided an update on options for addressing the effect of the city’s tax-revaluation issue. Budget Officer Eric Roche gave a presentation that described the city’s current plans.
The council previously passed Budget Amendment 1 at a Dec. 12 meeting, which consisted of a series of refinancing moves and some debt restructuring, including the use of carryover funds.
This first amendment passed 5-1, with Council Member Alex Kamkar dissenting.
Kamkar advocated for a different approach that would involve more cuts to the city’s spending. His proposed amendment included cuts to areas that some council members thought to be too important to reduce spending, such as cutting a software update.
Roche said during the Jan. 9 presentation that Budget Amendment 2 will be discussed in June, which is a projections amendment that will allow the council to recognize and incorporate additional revenues into the fiscal year 2022-23 budget.
Roche also presented some expense saving options for fiscal year 2023-24, including reductions to vehicle lease payments, contributions to a streets and sidewalks program, and debt sales.
The city’s next steps will be to continue analyzing the projected effect of the worksheet error on future tax rates and budgets, as well as acquiring a corrected 2022 property tax evaluation worksheet, for which the city Council has previously discussed hiring legal counsel for possible litigation.
“It’s really key to know which worksheet we’ll be going forward with and what sort of flexibility we will or won’t have,” Roche said.
The council will meet Feb. 13 for a first quarter budget update. City departments will work on projections in April and May to present to the council in June for the next budget amendment discussions.
