HEY BUDDY CAN YOU SPARE $ 11 MILLION TO $ 20 MILLION DOLLARS?
The spendthrifts on the Costa Mesa City Council got serious at their regularly scheduled study session yesterday. All their binge spending is now causing some problems and they've decided that they'd better start minding the store.
The economic news is even worse than the Council thought it would be. As things stand, the City is going to come up $11 million to $ 20 million short in money needed for the budget.
The City's Director of Finance, Marc Puckett, said he wouldn't be able to give a more accurate figure on the shortfall until March.
Councilmember Bever wasn't satsified with that answer and continued to ask for Puckett's best guess.
Bever suggested that some of the assumptions leading to the $ 11 million shortfall estimate were based on national sales tax projections and that our own situation in Costa Mesa may not be as rosy.
He wondered aloud if a more accurate and precise estimate of the shortfall might be in the $16 million to $20 million range.
Mr.Puckett finally agreed that Bever is probably right that the shortfall may be in the high end of the range, say, $16 million to $20million.
Councilmembers Mansoor, Bever, Monahan and Leece sounded serious about cutting costs.
Councilmember Foley, on the other hand, talked about new taxes to be put on the backs of citizens of the city. Her main focus was to put taxes on your utilities: gas, electric, water, sewer, etc. Fortunately, she can't do this unless this is first submitted to the voters.
Snippets from the meeting:
--Costa Mesa City employees don't contribute to their own retirement fund. This is all picked up by the citizens of the City. This is costing citizens about $16.3 million per year and is approximately fifteen percent of the total City budget.
--Seventy to seventy-five percent of City's budget is salary and benefits.
--City Manager Alan Roeder has already asked all departments in the City to reduce their expenses by another 5%.
--Mayor Mansoor wasn't satisfied with soft answers from staff about talking to the employee unions about opening their contracts, and firmly stated that he wants an early and "formal response" from the four employee unions representing Costa Mesa City employees indicating whether or not they'll be willing to cut salaries and benefits. The implication is that if the unions won't play ball, there may be employee layoffs.
--The City paid $6.9 million in overtime to City employees last year. Sixteen employees logged over a thousand hours of overtime each.
--The City is shouldering the burden for the police helicopters (ABLE). Santa Ana pays the City approximately $1,200 per hour if that City calls in our helicopter for assistance in that city, but only pays for the actual time the helicopter is being used.
--Councilmember Bever made the point that this isn't fair, because our helicopter is up and flying and costing Costa Mesa money all the time so that it's ready for immediate use, and that the citizens of Costa Mesa are paying for that dwell time.
--Councilmember Monahan asked the City Manager to prepare a report on how other cities are handling their similar financial problems.
--Approximately forty-five percent of Costa Mesa's general fund revenue comes from sales tax and almost thirty percent from property tax. By contrast, fifty percent of Newport Beach's general fund revenue comes from property tax and only about fifteen percent from sales tax.
--Mayor Mansoor again brought up needing to have our roads fixed. For some reason, Mansoor has an obsession with fixing roads. Our take is that most of our roads are pretty good, and we think he should foc
us on other things while just giving an occasional thought to this subject.
--Mayor Mansoor again brought up needing to have our roads fixed. For some reason, Mansoor has an obsession with fixing roads. Our take is that most of our roads are pretty good, and we think he should foc
us on other things while just giving an occasional thought to this subject.--At the meeting, Councilmember Foley constantly talked about providing "service" to our citizens.
By service, she apparently meant things such as running the pumps at the pond in Tewinkle Park along with the lights in the park (near her home).
Just the electric bill for running pumps and related equipment is $24,000 per year (we have confirmed this number with a top City official).
And, the total electric bill for this park (including the pumps) is reportedly about $80,000 per year (this is a number we heard at the study session).
Remember, that's just the electric bill and that's just this one park!
Remember, that's just the electric bill and that's just this one park!
Also, the recent rehab of the pond and the area near the pond in this park cost us a cool $1,050,083.64 (this was also confirmed by a top City official).
How many citizens actually spend time there?
# # #
# # #
HOW ABOUT STIMULATING THE 55 INTO AN UNDERGROUND MODE?
There's billions of dollars in the new stimulus package for highways.
If our local politicians have any brains and clout, they'll be pushing hard to get some of that money to put the 55 underground.
If our local politicians have any brains and clout, they'll be pushing hard to get some of that money to put the 55 underground.
Here's part of a Q&A in an article on the highway portion of the stimulus package:
Q: How long would it take for highway projects to begin?
A: Lawmakers say most of the projects could be up and running within 90 days, although it could take somewhat more time in northern states with longer winters. Highway construction groups have estimated that there are thousands of projects that could be started within that 90 days.
A: Lawmakers say most of the projects could be up and running within 90 days, although it could take somewhat more time in northern states with longer winters. Highway construction groups have estimated that there are thousands of projects that could be started within that 90 days.
# # #
Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
