Photo by Maren Machles.

Tomorrow, the City Council—with its five newest members and a new mayor—will meet to deliberate the $401M general fund budget set for the next year.

This marks the second hearing regarding the budget, with others planned [regard below] before two formal budget hearings and a final budget approval date of September 15. It also marks the last budget that former Mayor Bob Foster gave his own recommendations on. Foster painted a grim picture should the council now facing the budget avoid being prudent, pointing out that despite an upcoming $3.1M surplus, the City faces dire financial impacts mainly due to the increasing costs of the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS).

Mayor Robert Garcia, though echoing many of Foster’s sentiments, ultimately remained far more optimistic at his own recommendations meeting, often using phrases like “moving forward” and “staying on track.”

Garcia even outright disagreed with some of Foster’s more pointed recommendations, specifically Foster’s insistence that the City work more with the private sector. Foster insinuated that if an outside source could provide the same benefit at a cheaper cost, the City needs to unquestionably go with that outside contractor. Garcia, however, didn’t want to dismiss work that could be handed to current City workers—despite cost.

“I want to make sure that we give our employees who work really hard the opportunity to [solve the issue themselves before turning to outside resources],” Garcia said at his recommendations meeting.

The meeting at 5:00PM tomorrow at City Hall will include discussion on the spending plans for three departments: Parks, Recreation and Marine; Library Services and Code Enforcement. The following meetings will discuss:

Tuesday, August 12: Police, Fire, Heath & Human Services
Tuesday, August 19: Public Works, Water
Tuesday, September 2: Harbor

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