Politics & Government

City Staff Asked to Brace for Tight Budget Year

Department heads have been asked to suggest ways to cut costs by 10 percent.

New Port Richey officials are being asked to outline ways to cut each city department’s costs by 10 percent to slim spending in next year’s budget.

"That's going to be extremely painful,"  City Manager John Schneiger told the city council Tuesday night. The cuts are “draconian,” he said.

The reductions would be expected to be in place on the first day of budget year 2013, which begins Oct. 1, 2012. The cuts were asked for by the city manager and officials in a meeting with staff and on Tuesday brought up at the council meeting by the city manager.  

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The city general fund, which is tapped to pay for most city services, cannot sustain services at their current levels, according to city officials.

Preliminary projections point to general fund expenses that top $18.9 million next fiscal year. Even if the city pulls from reserve and rainy day funds, a possible $1.68 million deficit remains, officials said.

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If the city were to make those 10-percent cuts, that “at least gets us close to where we need to be,” Schneiger told the city council Tuesday night. The city has been working on five-year projections of the city budget.

The current fiscal year’s total general fund budget was tallied at $18.22 million. 

Revelopment Woes are Taking Their Toll

The general fund is suffering from declines in revenue, rising costs and a “future need to subsidize the Community Redevelopment Agency over the next five years,” according to a memo. Drops in the city’s population and property values are not helping the city, according to the memo. 

There was a time that the redevelopment fund subsidized the general fund, Schneiger said. Next year, the general fund will need to subsidize the CRA for hundreds of thousands of dollars. That subsidy is projected to rise to over $1 million in fiscal year 2014 and the following years.

The CRA is plagued by debt. In the middle of last decade, the city bought downtown properties that it still owns, and the debt service is a drain on finances.

“We’re going to get as creative and innovative as we possibly can,” Schneiger said.

Schneiger said the city is looking at ways to curtail cuts, including making cost-saving measures this year.  Employees have gone without raises in recent years, he said, and cuts have been made in those years. He said some city staff are aready doing the jobs of two positions.  

Some ideas the city might look at to cut costs are reducing the operating hours of the New Port Richey Public Library and the Recreation and Aquatic Center, reviewing utility fees, looking at ways to sell off “surplus property,” possibly closing a fire station and negotiating with banks to restructure debt payments. 

More details about the budget situation will come to light April 17, when an auditor presents financial projections for the next five years. 

“I’m not saying you need to bring your sleeping bags, but we are going to go into a little bit of detail,” Schneiger said.


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