February’s sales tax numbers have been posted and, simply put, they border on being disastrous — over $56,000 below projections which more than doubles the city’s budget gap.
What makes this even more troubling is what happened last year when the city’s sales tax receipts fell drastically below projections in the last months of the year. Last year's February receipts were actually $14,478.73 above projections, but the city was already $33,542.28 in the red and it finished the year $281,897.11 dollars below projections.. That’s a loss of $248,354.83 during the final seven months of FY 2015-16. This month, however, the city is $92,916.86 in the red — obviously, a far weaker financial position than at the same time last year. A decrease of that magnitude this time around could put the final budget gap at $341,451.69 or 1.6 percent of the entire General Fund budget for the fiscal year).
Council member Travis Mitchell, who unsuccessfully lobbied his council colleagues to reduce the sales tax projections during last year's budget preparation negotiations, said he was "frustrated" by the budget gap.
"I was concerned about the sales tax projections during budget preparations," Mitchell said, via e-mail. ""That's why I advocated reducing our forecast by at least $200,000. My attempts to rein us in were unsuccessful and I'm absolutely frustrated by the deficit. There's really no excuse for being this bullish in our projections."
Now the city is not about fo plunge into some kind of financial abyss — there’s plenty in the city’s reserves to compensate for these losses. But I’m convinced efforts should be made to find ways to reduce expenditures in the current budget and one area I would start with would be to institute a hard hiring freeze for the remainder of the fiscal year, or until such unlikely time before Sept. 30 when the city’s sales tax receipts are back on the plus side. The city seems to be functioning quite well with the employees currently on the payroll, so there’s no reason to supplement that number by filling any empty FTEs — whether they be new positions or those lost to attrition — between now and the end of the fiscal year.
Mitchell did not second my idea of a hiring freeze but he did say "Something needs to be done. I have no confidence in our Q3/Q4 projections."
Again, you can read the entire sad tale of the city’s sales tax receipts here.
Give the city manager another raise that he doesn't deserve that's the mayor's solution
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