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Politics & Government

City Budget Shows a Tentative 1.97 Percent Increase in Expenditures

City Council workshop at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to go over city manager's proposed 2011-12 budget.

The potential bottom line will be there for all to see at the City Council meeting at 5:30 p.m. today (Tuesday) at the council chambers at the Civic Center, 1950 Parkside Drive.

City Manager Dan Keen will unveil the proposed 2011-12 city budget and the council will hold a budget workshop.

The operating expenditures for the city are tallied on page 34 of Keen’s memorandum.

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The proposed 2011-12 budget shows expenditures of $172.1 million, up from $168.8 million in the adopted 2010-11 budget, a one-year proposed increase of 1.97 percent (also a big decrease from the peak budget year of $207.7 million in 2009-10).

Increases in public works, debt service payment and pension trust expenditures and reserve funds outweigh reductions in a number of city departments: city attorney, Community Development, Community & Recreation Services, Human Resources, Information Technology, city manager and stormwater management.

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 With the budget, Keen writes in his budget memorandum for the council: “As General Fund revenues declined to levels not seen since in the late 1990s, the city has reduced General Fund expenditures by 17 percent from what had been anticipated for Fiscal Year 2011-12 in FY 2008-09, the last budget written before the severe impacts of the recession were felt.”

The city’s full- and part-time work force has decreased by the equivalent of 159 full-time positions in the same time frame, Keen said.

When the council adopted a budget in June, it was about to forward a ballot measure asking voters for a half-cent sales tax to alleviate the budget crisis. In November, voters approved Measure Q by an approval margin of 54 percent, Keen noted. Measure Q’s revenues begin to flow to the city this summer, to continue for five years.

 The budget will get a lot of attention but there are other items on the agenda as well:

  •   Alexandra Bernard, an outreach specialist from Anka Behavioral Health Inc., a Concord organization that provides rehabilitation services to California’s most vulnerable populations, will discuss the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program.
  •   A public hearing for the city’s landscape and lighting maintenance districts.
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