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View Winners → Arcadia Council Approves $55.7 Million General Fund Budget FY ’15-16
Arcadia Weekly Jun 04, 2015
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City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto detailed the proposed budget in a presentation prior to the council’s 5-0 vote. – Photo by Terry Miller
By Joe Taglieri
The Arcadia City Council on Tuesday approved a $55.7 million general fund budget for the upcoming 2015-16 fiscal year that begins July 1.
Officials anticipate revenue totaling $59.7 million, enabling $4.5 million in fund transfers toward road and park improvements, staff equipment upgrades, a boost to the general liability and workers’ compensation fund, establishing a reserve fund for building a new city hall and adding nearly $500,000 in new programs and employees.
Arcadia begins the new fiscal year with $5.7 million in the general fund and projections indicate 2015-16 will end with a $5.1 million general fund balance as a result of increasing revenue streams largely offsetting the fund transfers and new full-time staff additions.
City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto detailed the proposed budget in a presentation prior to the council’s 5-0 vote, which members approved without much comment or discussion.
After a month of rigorous public deliberation on city finances in the form of two lengthy study sessions in May, council members were confident in the city’s current fiscal direction.
“We’ve had a month to go through all this … so none of this is new to us,” said Council Member Tom Beck. “We’ve studied it, we’ve asked the questions so if you wonder why we’re not asking a lot of questions it’s because we asked them a month ago when these things were first presented.”
Beck also explained the panel’s consensus on shifting significant amounts of money into funds for public infrastructure improvements and new equipment such as staff vehicles and new computers.
“We’re trying to be conservative because we don’t know when the next recession’s coming, we just know that one’s coming and we need to plan for that,” Beck said. “We’ve funded our capital improvement and other reserve funds so that when that date comes we’ll have the resources to run the city efficiently with vehicles and computers and everything else that you would expect from a community like us.”
The city’s capital improvement and equipment replacement funds each will receive $1.75 million increases, and $500,000 will go to both the liability and compensation fund as well as a new reserve account established to eventually cover the cost of replacing Arcadia’s aging City Hall facilities, according to Lazzaretto’s presentation.
The council’s ’15-16 budget adds several new staff positions, the most costly of which include two additional police officers, a Public Works Services Department manager to oversee the city’s water conservation programs and an additional maintenance worker.
The $486,000 in new staff positions and programs also designates $70,000 for Covina-based marketing firm 789 Inc. to orchestrate a “community outreach strategic plan” focused on “image management and particularly business retention and recruitment,” according to a city staff report. “The communication efforts to be taken will focus on the City’s positive attributes and help sustain a sense of pride in the Arcadia of today.”
Property and sales taxes provided the most revenue last year and are projected to do the same in 2015-16, according to Lazzaretto’s analysis. Both are expected to contribute about $12 million in revenue.
“Property taxes continue to be strong, we expect them to go up at 6 percent,” the city manager reported.
Sales tax revenue will spike 13 percent in the new fiscal year compared with 2014-15 year-end estimates.
“It’s not because we think we’re all going to go out and buy 13 percent more things this year,” Lazzaretto explained. “Really what’s happening is we see strong growth in the 4-5 percent range, but we see a one-time transfer coming from the state on loans that they took out in the mid-2000s that they’re finally finishing paying us back for … to the tune of about $700,000.”
The city manager also itemized general fund expenses for the upcoming fiscal year, which are expected to increase 2 percent while revenue projections indicate a 4.7 percent increase.
The Arcadia Police Department commands 37 percent of the budget, and the Fire Department receives 25 percent.
All other city departments receive less than 10 percent of general fund outlays.
“As Special Revenues, Enterprise, and Debt Service funds are restricted to specific purposes and are generally self-sustaining,” the staff report filed by Lazzaretto and Administrative Services Director Hugh Quach focused on the general fund’s operating budget. All of the city’s operating funds total $104.1 million in expenditures.
