This will be the first in a series of public outreach
meetings
Gilroy – Why doesn’t the city borrow a million dollars from its public facilities fund to help cover budget shortfalls for construction along Monterey Street? Why doesn’t the city install bathrooms at Sunrise Park? Why can Gilroy afford $500,000 a year for sidewalk repairs, but not $2 million?
Residents wondering about the city’s spending priorities and what can – or can’t – be done with local tax dollars can call Mayor Al Pinheiro Wednesday night, when he and City Administrator Jay Baksa hold a live televised workshop on the inner workings of Gilroy’s $126 million budget. The public event at City Hall will air on Charter Cable Channel 17 and include a call-in session for those who can’t attend.
The workshop is the first in a series of public sessions intended to shine light on the city’s financial condition and the budgeting process. Officials said they do not plan to post the draft budget online in time for the Wednesday session, but they will do so after council signs off on it later this month. The document will be available in time for the next budget session at the end of August.
“We’re going to be able to show that even though our numbers have become much better, there’s still not enough to do all the things we need to do in our city,” Mayor Al Pinheiro said, referring to an improved budget forecast.
After a three-year hiring freeze, city officials are planning to add two dozen employees, put $500,000 or more into sidewalk repairs and restore funding for other programs cut back in recent years.
Despite such gains, officials hope to prevent overconfidence. Pinheiro is quick to note, for instance, that the city remains heavily reliant on sales tax revenues from its shopping centers – a revenue source that could dry up in a down economy.
“The point of this is to have our city budget be as transparent as possible to the whole community, and to give them an opportunity to ask questions and give them an overview of how the city budget works,” Pinheiro said. “This also hopefully will give our citizens a better understanding as to why we might have to cut services if certain things happen in our budget, whether it’s loss of funds to the state or loss of sales tax.”
Baksa hopes the sessions will help clarify restrictions on the city’s tax coffers.
“Everyone has got an opinion about where money should go,” he said. “This will be an excellent session for people to intelligently talk about this. It will be a good chance for them to dig into what monies can be used for what, and what is restricted and what is not.”
Only $35 million of the city’s $126 million budget goes toward operating expenses, the vast majority is earmarked for the salaries and benefits of Gilroy’s 270 public employees. The remainder is composed of several pots of money that support new buildings, roads, sewers and other public improvements. The city has $90 million sitting in those pots, but much of that is reserved for specific uses. Money in the sewer impact fund, for instance, cannot be used for Monterey Street improvements.
This is the second time in a decade that city leaders have tried to engage the public in the budget process. In the late ’90s, former Mayor Mike Gilroy held a series of public sessions on the budget and other issues.
Those sessions attracted few attendees, but Baksa said changing times make attendance a less reliable measure of the program’s effectiveness.
