Thu 31 Jan 2008
Though i love to bash tabloid national news as of late, jack has beaten me to it.
So in other news, a new city of eugene budget committee season kicked off today at our local library. Goal? To start getting ready for the budget that will be coming out in several months, to make amendments, and approve it. We have a different model this year: budgeting for outcomes (BFO), created by PSG. The goal of BFO is to connect budget line items with measures to evaluate the efficacy of these line items. Over time, ideally this makes changes to the budget easier and more tied to what measurable benefits that line-item achieves. My worry currently is that i’ve started hearing back channel information that there have been problems in the past with implementation.
What else to watch for this budget season?
- The size of this year’s deficit. The forecast is it will pull our “rainy-day” reserves (aka general fund reserves for revenue shortfall) from $6mil to $1.3mil. The year before it was at $12mil. In rosy times, we should be adding to the reserve.
- The process. Any additions we make, can we make them in the context of a balanced budget? Many additions in previous years come from this rainy day reserve.
- The forecast’s property tax assumptions. There are two key factors: the growth rate of property tax assessed (4.8%) and the collection rate on this (95%). The increase in assessed property tax includes the almost-guaranteed 3% (due to M50) and 1.8% in the new property tax revenue stream from new construction. The worry is that new construction has already slowed. The collection rate is dependent on people paying and this rate dipped to around 85% in the 80’s during the housing slump then. We are already getting news of increased foreclosures in lane county — and the main culprit, the subprime problems at the national level are only making things worse. Though the years of double digit housing price increases haven’t helped. I could go on about the lack of regulation that led to these subprime loans being deemed safe investments, and the bailouts for the chief offenders.
- Mike Clark will join the bus project, then become our biggest donor — not in that order.
January 31st, 2008 at 8:37 am
If Mike joins the bus, I’ll eat my hat. You know, the big fuzzy one that’s hard to digest.
But seriously, the debt issue is a problem. At minimum, it gives the cons fodder for their cannons to destroy progressive actions — “how are we going to pay for it?” is some how a valid argument when it comes to social and community programs, but never comes up when we’re talking about wars.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:52 pm
LOL!! Would you like ketchup with that?
If it comes with a free set of steak knives and I can get James Mattiace to help me with the occasional comedy writting, I might just have to give this some real thought. :o)
January 31st, 2008 at 1:09 pm
P.S. - that’s a really good point about the collection rate.
January 31st, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Well, live by the sword, die by the sword. Budget limitations have been the death of both good ideas (eg, making strangulation a felony) and potentially bad ideas (Mannix’s M40 will probably go down in flames b/c of the horrendous budget impact). The progressive ideas that get the most traction with the electorate tend to be the cheap ones, sadly.
February 3rd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
When the writers’ strike ends…
James
February 3rd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
hey — if “A” Daily Show is on…you can do it. We’ll refer to you as Jim Mattiace until it’s over. And this has strayed from the state city budget.