(Jan. 19, 2007) -- In a report agendized for the January 23 City Council meeting, senior city management says secured real property taxes are City Hall's largest revenue source...and says recent Council-approved pay raises in a contract voluntarily renegotiated by City Hall with the LB Police Officers Association are expected to consume most -- if not all -- of management's projected net structural revenue growth for the next three years.

The news comes as the City Council is poised to decide later at the same Jan. 23 Council meeting whether to conduct a special May 1 citywide election on a series of City Charter Amendments...including a measure that would create a City Hall-selected "Compensation Commission" with the power to raise Councilmembers' pay.

The report by Director of Financial Management Mike Killebrew lists City Hall's top 10 FY 06 revenue producers as a percentage of total General Fund revenues ($367.7 million) [rounded figures below]

The $8+ million General Fund sum from LB hotel room taxes ("transient occupancy tax"), while considerably smaller than other revenue sources (including parking citations and business license taxes) may be a record amount. Under a Council-approved formula, LB's "transient occupancy tax" is split...with half going to the General Fund and the other half going to a mixture of items including roughly $4 million annually that provides roughly 70% of the operating revenue of the LB Convention & Visitors Bureau, a privately run entity.

In its section discussing the outlook for FY 07, Mr. Killebrew's memo states in pertinent part:

Looking to the future, we must not lose sight of the fact that the amended Police Officers Association labor agreement calls for an increase of approximately $10 million over the next three years . This includes an immediate 5 percent longevity pay increase for officers with ten or more years in service; followed by another 5 percent increase in October 2007 for officers with more than 15 years of service and the remaining increases to come in 2008 and 2009 . Over half the force has 10 or more years of service resulting in a total cost of $2.4 million for FY 07 and the amended contract is anticipated to absorb most, if not all, of the projected net structural revenue growth of the General Fund over the next three years.

Management's memo concludes:

Despite the positive year-to-date performance, there is reason to maintain a firm position of fiscal restraint. We must be ever mindful of the tenuous nature of General Fund revenue sources, the FY 07 budgetary reliance upon one-time revenue from planned land sales and some of the planned savings from optimization studies may not be realized until next fiscal year. Also, the judicious use of additional one-time resources earned in FY 07 must be allocated toward the City's highest priority one-time uses (e.g. capital projects, pay-down existing debt or other non-recurring needs) . The City will continue to fully implement the Plan solutions in FY 07 to solve the remaining $10 million in structural deficit in a collaborative and transparent manner.