Fillmore City Manager Yvonne Quiring addressed council with budget recommendations, Tuesday night. Cuts, reductions and reorganization dominated the presentation.

The June 7, 2011 Fillmore City Council meeting started late after a 5:30 closed session concerning former fire Chief Peter Egedi.

The Special Fillmore City Council/Budget Workshop Meeting started at 7:20pm and left many of those in attendance speechless as the anticipated 2012 Budget Overview was laid out. With over 13 full-time and part-time positions on the chopping block, and other income-generating proposals including another water/sewer increase, the costs saving suggestions were the hard reality of the City’s fiscal situation.

City Manager Yvonne Quiring presented a grim presentation of the City’s 2012 finances starting with a mid-year deficit amount of $2.1 million and ending the fiscal year in about the same shape. The bottom line; revenue generated by the City does not cover the expenditures and drastic measures must be taken. Quiring reported this may require reducing service levels, City employee salaries, benefit concessions, fee increases, and using monies from the General Fund Reserve. The City’s fiscal challenges are expected to extend to fiscal year 2013 unless the City obtains some new sources of revenue.

Fillmore’s General Fund Revenues is generated mostly from taxes which amount to about 50% of the fund; then Transfers In at about 30% and the remaining comes from licenses, permits, fines and other revenue. The largest portion of the City’s General Fund Expenditures goes to Public Safety which requires about 66%; next is the General Government at about 20% with the remaining going to Public Works, Community Development and Transfer Out Loans.

The City of Fillmore has hired Bryce Consulting firm to give recommendations on staffing levels and work practices in an effort to identify gaps, duplication, inefficiencies and areas where position reductions are feasible. The realignment of functions and departments along with modifications to organizational structure and staffing changes that Bryce recommended had some positions being added and some deleted. Suggestions were; vacating the Deputy City Manager, Administrative Assistant and Human Resource Officer; adding a Deputy City Clerk/Administrative Assistant and an Assistant to the City Manager to cover Human Resources, Risk Management, Economic Development, Redevelopment, Budget Support, and Special Projects.

Other suggestions included merging Community Development with Public Works to become the Municipal Service Department. This would delete the Community Development Director, Assistant Planner and Building Official which would be replaced by a Senior Planner with building Inspection and Code Enforcement contracted out. Two Senior Maintainer positions, two Entry/Intermediate Maintainer positions and one Public Works Administrative Clerk would be deleted with a Meter Reader position being added.

Community Service would see a deletion of two Facility Custodians and Fire would have the Disaster Coordinator eliminated. Finance would delete the Confidential Accounting Technician and Fiscal Assistant, then an Information Technology Technician would be added and an Accountant when funding allows.

The City Manager also presented the Council with a proposed list of eliminated positions and their annual savings. Those positions included: Motor Officer ($195,676), School Resource Officer ($79,939) with Fillmore Unified School District to continue funding the part time position, One Gang Officer ($140,004) the second Gang Officer remains in the budget.

Quiring’s other suggestions basically followed those of Bryce Consulting and presented a total of 11 full-time positions to be cut. Those positions were: (1) Administration, (2) Community Development, (2) Community Service, (1) Finance, (1) Fire, (4) Public Works. Also considered was a cut of all part-time Public Works employees which would add another 2.75 positions bringing the total to 13.75 eliminated positions. One of the eliminated part-time positions is the CATV. The newly-created Information Technology position will broadcast the Council meetings. There would be 30 full-time City positions remaining.

The positions to be eliminated would be based on seniority, thus employees with the least amount of service are the first to be laid-off. Employees with enough seniority can “bump back” to a lower class if their position is eliminated.

The proposed City Employees reductions for fiscal year 2011 and 2012 will be 5.5% furloughs and the volunteer Paramedic stipend will be reduced from $300 to $275. The reduction in the Paramedic stipend will save the City $9,823 annually.

Other items proposed are closing City Hall every Friday instead of the current schedule of every other Friday and a ballot measure for a limited-term, up to five years, Sales Tax increase of one-half or three-quarter cent is being considered. This would generate approximately $326,000 or $489,000 per year. The money for the ballot measure would come from the reserve and is estimated to cost $20,000.

One item that is sure to get everyone’s attention is the increase in water and sewer rates, which are already considered high by the community. July 1st the sewer rates will see a 3 percent increase to approximately $84.46 per month and water rates will increase by 10 percent on January 1, 2012 to approximately $34.43 per month. Council Member Patti Walker informed the Council that United Water’s pumping charges will increase by 46 percent next year.

Although some fees were increased last year a proposal to increase Recreation Fees was submitted. The fees include softball fees which would increase from $425 to $450, Youth Basketball from $75 to $85, park rental from $500 to $600, electric (non-wedding) for Central Park from $50 to $75, Community Center rental from $450 to $500 and Multipurpose Room from $750 to $800 per day.

A discussion will be held on June 15, 2011 to review services associated with the Veteran’s Memorial such as trash disposal and staffing of events. The pool deficit has been cut by $71,000 and will be closed from mid October to February 8th saving approximately $22,000. A fee increase is not proposed because the City will try to boost revenue through attendance. Some basic custodial duties may be assumed by Pool staff and augmented by Facilities staff. There was a recommendation that the Towne Theatre not be rented out because the fees for special events do not cover the costs.

The City was notified that the United Way will not be providing $10,000 in funding to the Senior Center but on the positive side, Ebell Club provided a grant for the ADA automatic doors. Changing the location of Commodities to the North Fillmore Storefront is being considered.

The State of California has taken about $2.9 from the Redevelopment Agency and as a result the City has less money available for debt-service and projects, but the City Manager and Council made sure to inform everyone that there should be no doubt that the City will pay its debt-service.

On June 14th and June 21st the City Manager is asking the Council to give some direction as to what proposals should be considered. Then on June 28th the changes would be incorporated and a budget established. The line-item details in the Adopted Budget will be delivered to the Council sometime in September/October.

Council Member Steve Conaway questioned the Council about the problem they have giving developers an Impact Fee, stating, “I think we need to reevaluate ourselves as a city…. Forty-two thousand in Impact Fees will help the City.” He also added that other cities have earmarked their Redevelopment monies and Fillmore isn’t doing the same with its RDA funds so the State can’t grab them adding, “We seem to be hurting ourselves and helping the State.”

Mayor Pro Tem Jamey Brooks responded, “I don’t believe housing is our savings…We can’t create money, we have to live within our means.” Council Member Brian Sipes agreed with Brooks and said he disagreed with Conaway stating the City should not depend on building housing to generate monies and that people are not moving into Fillmore partly because of the cost of sewer and water. Walker then added that she was not seeing anyone coming forward to build and costs for services throughout the country are greater than revenue generated from housing. Conaway responded to the rest of the Council Members that the bigger issue is if the Council can’t give a developer an impact fee that money is lost. Walker then told Conaway that the disagreement on Impact Fees with the last developers before the Council, Williams Homes, was that they wanted the fee costs at the close of escrow, not at the time of pulling their permits.

Mayor Gayle Washburn suggested that she do a ride along with some of the people in the field. Conaway remarked that that was a good idea and suggested the City Manager do the same, to which Quiring responded, “I’d be happy to do that.” Brooks then stated that the City Manager is too busy with all the budget problems at present to be using her time that way.

The proposed budget can be found on the City’s website June 9th and a hard copy will be available for reading at City Hall.