Our City Council is reviewing budget priorities prior to approving a city budget for fiscal year 2005-2006, and it seems that the good times are back.
The good news is that revenues are expected to be around $433 million, which leaves about a $15 million surplus over expense. However, that money is being used to pay back other accounts that made expenditures over the past year, such as the purchase of the Fisher Lumber site for a possible expansion of Memorial Park.
There are much-needed features in the proposed budget, such as the hiring of two additional police officers for the department’s Homeless Liaison Program and additional park rangers to patrol the parks. Keep in mind that these expenditures are a result of our continuously growing transient population. They’re “hidden dollars” added to the estimated $20 million our vagrant population really costs on an annual basis — which aren’t discussed publicly.
New monies earmarked for additional staff at the newly expanded Virginia Park and for the restoration of cutbacks for tree trimming, street lighting and other neighborhood services are all welcome news.
It’s too bad City Hall can’t find enough money to keep our branch libraries open on Fridays and Sundays. I don’t mean to get off on a tangent here, but I’m amazed that the neighborhood branch libraries are shut down two days a week.
Open and accessible libraries are vital to a good community and the education of our children. I guess that school and education advocates, including the leadership from the politically powerful Community for Excellent Public Schools (CEPS), don’t have shuttered branch libraries on their radar screens because, maybe, they have other fish to fry. So how about it City Council? Let’s open those libraries seven days a week.
Only in Santa Monica would a budget surplus necessitate higher taxes.
In spite of the positive fiscal news, we’re still facing the prospect of much higher usage fees and utility taxes for city water, refuse and sewage services. A report presented to the City Council on May 17 said “residents can expect sudden to gradual rate increases in water and solid-waste fees over the next five years” because officials say expenditures are exceeding revenues for those services.
City staff suggests either a 31 percent increase in the water fund for one year or 15 percent to 11 percent annual increases for either three or four years because “revenue was not keeping up with expenses.”
Recommended increases in refuse collection fees range from a 20 percent increase starting in July with additional smaller increases following in years to come. Never mind that our single-family refuse rates already are significantly higher than neighboring cities The wastewater fund also is dwindling, and the restoration remedies call for a 25 percent increase in fees for a one-year recovery or smaller increases for a two-or three-year recovery.
Every one of us will be paying much more for basic city services — businesses and property owners alike. Renters, too, will be seeing healthy rent increases as a result of higher fees. City Hall should subsidize these services like it currently does with the various frills, pet projects and personal agenda pork it supports to the tune of millions of dollars annually.
Maybe I’m off base, but I don’t hear residents whining about lack of services for outsiders. However, I sure hear them complain about all the rising fees, tax increases, inefficient government, growing municipal bureaucracy and other “nickel and diming” that costs us more without improving our quality of life. It seems our “spend and tax” City Council and city management would have us pay, pay, pay rather than divert monies from their “save the world” agenda.
The expansion of city-sponsored housing in an already densely populated city is one of the reasons why costs for basic services are going up. Maybe limiting development would slow these cost increases. Another way to increase revenue is to “get tough” with recycling thieves who regularly steal recyclables, thus stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential revenue from City Hall.
City Hall has a proposal that recommends that an experienced, private company take over part of the city’s refuse and recycling service. Preliminary findings indicate that costs could be better controlled and waste management would operate much more efficiently.
I’ll be looking into this in a future column, but in the meantime, why hasn’t City Hall gotten the message? (Bill Bauer is a longtime Santa Monica resident and a freelance writer.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 30, 2005. Read the original PDF.