Latest on the budget

The City Council tweaked the Mayor's proposed budget this morning, and the final action resolution will be based on the action they took this morning. I was planning on blogging about this tomorrow morning, but Deena Winter, the Lincoln Journal Star's government reporter wanted some reaction from me this afternoon, so I think I'll save myself the time of double entry by simply posting my response to her inquiry.

"I'm still trying to digest this, Deena, but it looks to me that the council has restored $340,000 to the police department: $190,000 from streets and $150,000 from contingency. We are still negotiating with LPS, so it is not settled yet what, if any, additional revenue will be forthcoming for the services of school resource officers. I'm not counting that revenue until I see an approved Inter-local Agreement.

It is my intention to plow additional revenue into police officers. The reduction of our authorized strength from 317 to 316, and the under funding of the rest of our personnel costs meant that we would have to operate below our authorized strength by up to 10 officers. The increases will help us largely avoid that, and we will be using as much additional revenue as is available to come back up to a strength of 317 sworn officers. I don't think there is anything we can do about the loss of the remaining 4.75 support positions, though.

As a practical matter, our January recruit class is going to be larger than it looked a month ago. We may have a little more breathing room in our overtime budget, too, which will be helpful--since the base salaries are going up 3.25% in the third year of a three year contract. It is noteworthy that the police overtime expense this year is less than the amount we paid in fiscal year 1993-1994 when the payroll was half it's present size.

It does not appear to me that there will be enough to add additional officers over and above 317, however, which is what we would need before we could draw against our existing COPS grant. Moreover, I would be hesitant to start doing so, even if we could get to 318 or 319, because the obligation is for four years--three years of the grant, and one year beyond it's conclusion. I don't think we would want to run the risk of paying money back to the Federal government, and the issue I see looming is that some of the restored funds are still coming from one-time sources, rather than an increase in revenue. We will see, though.

Right now, I think caution is in order. The City still has work to do in order to get our revenue and expenses into balance. I share Mayor Beutler's vision of how this needs to be done--methodically, maturely, and with a stronger community consensus about what services we want our City government to provide. The Mayor has been pretty clear about this with the department directors, and I think we all realize that next year's budget will be round two of a multi-year plan. "

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you might want to go back and read a comment I posted in this blog on May 17 in response to a question from Jenn. It's not the post itself, but the second comment's last paragraph, that merits a re-read:

"When the dust clears on the City's current budget crisis, reasonable people will see that the police department's efficiency, our credibility in the community, and our record of strong financial self-control have paid off. We will be just fine, and better than most other City agencies."

What happened today is in large part the result of everyone on this department being frugal with gas, thinking twice before spending overtime that might be avoided, double checking the special details for potential reductions, keeping a close eye on the mileage, and so forth. We have built a reputation as good stewards of the public dollar, and that has been a team effort.