Goleta OKs More Than $30M in Spending Over Two Years

Santa Barbara Newsroom
By Tom Schultz
June 26, 2007

The Goleta City Council on Monday approved more than $30 million in spending over the next two fiscal years — finalizing balanced budgets focused on growing the young municipality amid concerns about possible future deficits.

In a 4-0 vote, the council approved $15.42 million in expenditures in fiscal year 2007-08 starting next month, and another $15.74 mllion in spending in 2008-09. Revenues would outpace disbursements by just $10,000 in the first year and $16,000 during the next.

In a separate 4-0 vote, the council approved Redevelopment Agency budgets focused on cleaning up blight across Old Town that provide nearly $11 million in spending in 2007-08 and more than $3.8 million in spending in 2008-09.

"There's a lot going on here and we're very excited as we tackle the next two years," City Manager Dan Singer told councl members. He said it would make sense for the city to formally review its botttom line with the council in six months.

Councilman Roger Aceves challenged City Hall staff to keep looking for cost savings as well as new revenue streams. If city projections hold true, Goleta will be nearly $900,000 in the red by July 2010 and more than $1.2 million in the red by July 2012.

Councilman Eric Onnen, who last week sugggested the city hold the line on staff raises to create more of a financial cushion while the city is still in the black, was reportedly at home ill and did not vote.

Monday's evening session to adopt the budget followed a series of workshops that began in late May. The hearing moved quickly compared to a meeting a week earlier, when the council remained at City Hall to nearly midnight debating cost-saving strategies.

Key issues in recent weeks included: Should the Goleta forgo pay raises for City Hall staff members, for example, or perhaps promise less help by way of funding grants to outside organizations? Should the city make reigning in ongoing costs a priority, or perhaps cut one-time expenditures?

Onnen last week said he was obligated to speak out in favor of restraining ongoing costs such as salary increases.

"We've got a zero-sum budget," he said a week ago. "And we're not going to save resources to prepare for that? I think it's imprudent. . . If I was staff, I would build in some rate increases into my budget proposal as well.

"But we have flat revenues," he said. "I'm not suggesting there be no cost of living increases over the next two-year period. I'm saying we don't commit to that in this (budget). If we say we are going to wait and see, then that's what their expectation will be. We can't change it after we give it to them. That's the point."

Other council members defended the raises. The budget approved Monday retains 3 percent cost of living adjustments in each of the next two years at a cost of more than $200,000. It also keeps money flowing to outside organizations, including $200,000 over two years to Girsh Park and $40,000 over the same time period to the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce.

"The idea of not giving staff what I think of as their just reward is unconscionable, placed in the context of some of the other spending in this budget," Councilwoman Jonny Wallis said last week. "If we don't pay our staff well, we're not going to make progress as a city."

Goleta, a city of 30,000 residents, incorporated in 2002.

While overall city revenues will barely outpace spending in the next two business cycles, according to projections, City Manager Dan Singer has expressed confidence that projections gauging how much tax and fee money will hit the coffers are solid.

This comes as several council members push for new negotiations over a contract that sends half of Goleta's tax revenue to Santa Barbara County, under terms of a deal the two governments worked out upon Goleta's successful 2002 incorporation. Councilmen Onnen, Aceves and Michael Bennett promised to renegotiate the agreement to make it more favorable to the city during last fall's bruising council election campaign.

As it stands today, Goleta's new budget would provide for a variety of programs and services.

The largest expense — nearly 40 percent of all spending — would go to public safety. The city would pay the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department more than $11 million over the next two business cycles to patrol neighborhoods.

Planning, another key function in Goleta, would account for about 13 percent of costs.

On Monday, officials took an opportunity to highlight some of the programs the new budgets will pay for.

"The numbers don't mean that much to the people watching at home, but the activities we'll be accomplishing . . . should be of interest," Mayor Jean Blois said.

Among those actiivities, the city plans to expand programing on its government access TV channel 19, redesign its Web site, further promote carpooling among its employees, continue helping to spruce up Old Town homes and businesses, add a community resource deputy to its police force, create a geographic information system for property owners, finish its first general plan, build new trails at Ellwood Mesa, open new parks, repair the Goleta library and expand street sweeping.

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