Long-Range Fiscal Fixes on Council's Tuesday Agenda

Doesn’t it seem like yesterday when the city of Novato finished making huge cuts to its annual budgets for the next couple of years? It was many months ago, but it’s already time to consider a budget overview and get an update on how the city is paying for all the services it provides with less tax revenue from the public.

The Novato City Council and the Novato Redevelopment Agency have set a workshop session for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday to go over the latest dollar figures, provide a department-by-department update about expenses and try to agree on what is meant by “fiscal sustainability.”

The meeting (see attached agenda) will be at the Hamilton Community Center at 503 S. Palm Drive in Hamilton.

, approved by voters last year as an emergency stop-gap fix to a chronic funding problem, adds $3 million annually to city coffers by raising sales taxes and offsets the ongoing deficits over the next five years, according to a city staff report.

But the economic outlook remains bleak; without the Measure F funds factored in, the city says its structural deficit is expected to grow over the next five years from the $400,000 for 2011-12 to $2.9 million by 2016-17. Since Measure F only lasts five years, the City Council has to consider new actions that reduce ongoing expenditures or find a way to increase revenue to avoid being faced with the $2.9 million shortfall for 2016-17.

Representatives from each department will outline their budget strategy for the coming fiscal year as well as their accomplishments from the previous yea, and council members will follow those sessions with questions. After that, citizens are welcome to add input during a public comment period.