In July, the City kicked off the eight-month Engage Roseville effort under the City Council’s direction, to get residents and customers engaged in issues affecting city services. While the effort focuses on closing a $14 million budget gap, we don’t anticipate an immediate budget reduction of this magnitude, but we need to be prepared.
Barring new revenue streams, the current gap is anticipated to widen to this level due to a fundamental shift in the way people spend (which reduces our sales tax revenue), and our lack of control of increasing expenses (such as pension costs, unfunded state mandates and regulatory burdens, increases in minimum wage, and health care reform).
We’re being proactive by starting early with this community discussion.
Because we forecast expenses will outpace revenues in the next 3-5 years, we need to figure out how we will live within our means in accordance with Council policy. This means our service levels (expenses) will need to be reduced to align with revenue. The priorities derived from the CPAC and Council from this exercise will act as a guide for future budgets in the event we need to make reductions.
Specifically, the CPAC will be evaluating and prioritizing what services we offer the community, not how we deliver them. Delivery of services has been addressed through management audits and ongoing refinement through staff suggestions, technology innovation, and customer feedback.
This effort will help us better understand community priorities and to create a sustainable operations plan for the next several years.
I wanted to address two areas of particular concern I’ve heard from our staff:
Managing staffing levels: In the past 10 years, our population has grown and the City’s General Fund staffing levels have decreased, resulting in a 39 percent reduction per capita in staffing during that time. In addition to being understaffed, 30 percent of our workforce is age-eligible for retirement. Because of these factors, we plan to reduce labor costs through attrition, so no layoffs are anticipated moving forward.
Cuts to support services: All General Fund departments have completed much of the trimming and minor fee and revenue increases over the past 10 years. So if the need arises to eliminate or significantly reduce services, support-department resources will be considered concurrently, as they are directly related.