Management bases its early projection on its previously projected FY20 deficit combined with the Council's FY19 voted restoration (Sept. 2018) of Fire Engine 17 and adding a six-member LBPD "rapid response bike team" and pursuing the Council-indicated priority of LBPD body worn cameras UNLESS those sums are offset by (a) City Council raising parking and ambulance fees "to the maximum extent feasible" AND (b) Measure A sales tax revenue continuing to bring City Hall more revenue (as it has thus far) than originally anticipated; AND (c) "efficiencies and other adjustments" and health care cost savings materialize as city staff currently projects.

City staff acknowledged that regardless of whether those "unless" revenues materialize, LB taxpayers would still face likely increased labor costs in negotiating new city employee contracts plus additional costs that could leave LB residents/businesses facing possible significant "service reductions" unless some other types of revenue or spending solutions are found.

City management's FY20 projections at the Dec. 18 study session -- agendized to "receive and file a presentation on the City's Fiscal Outlook" -- weren't available for taxpayers to study or for media to report until the 2 p.m. hour on the day of the 3 p.m. meeting and staff didn't provide any narrative memo, just Power Point slides. (No Councilmembers objected to this.)

Management's Power Point presentation included the summarizing slide below:

Source: City management PPT presentation, Dec. 18, 2018 3 p.m. Council study session

[Scroll down for further.]

City staff's projections further assume NO Council FY19 or FY20 restorations of additional police officers for taxpayers (effectively leaving LB residents/businesses with 186 fewer citywide deployable officers than LB taxpayers previously received) and NO restoration of downtown LB's second fire engine at Stn 1 (maintained for years to address high rise fire risks.) This is despite City Hall now receiving over $50 million additional annually from the Measure A sales tax increase plus already-imposed increases in parking fines and ambulance fees, plus the Council's decision to accept higher risk levels for self-insurance funds, with some minimized departmental reductions and no additional funding of reserves (to help maintain the city's debt-bond rating.)

Seven Councilmembers attended all or part of the study session; Councilwoman Stacy Mungo (chair of the Council's Budget Oversight Committee) and Vice Mayor Dee Andrews were absent.

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Councilman Rex Richardson urged focusing on the "?" items on the slide above while hoping that the other offsetting increased revenue materializes "so really, and none of these with the exception of the increased fees...none of these really require Council approval to make, so this is essentially going in without a shortfall projection...That narrows it down to these question marks...It seems like things are heading in the right direction so that those revenue projections may come in stronger, that's the hope...[and regarding] service reductions as needed, well let's hope to not need service reductions, so if we can limit any new costs as much as we can so as not to reduce services to the public, that certainly is the direction we should go...What I see here is with the new revenue and projected shortfalls, it's balanced before these question marks."

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Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez (who on Dec. 19 named Richardson to chair her campaign committee for a vacated state Senate seat) said she shared concern over increased parking and ambulance fees but "I know that we will certainly discuss a little bit more as to how we can generate additional revenue elsewhere." Councilwoman Jeannine Pearce likewise stated that "I have a challenge with [increasing] the parking fines to the maximum extent feasible...[because] typically people that are receiving these [fines] are folks that don't have access to parking and are lower income, so...I want to make sure that we have a clear process for them and that we're increasing every single year our parking tickets." (As previously reported by LBREPORT,com, one week earlier Councilmembers Pearce and Gonzalez, who together represent LB's downtown areas, made the motion and a second respectively to "receive and file" and take no action to pursue flaws and omissions cited with specificity by Alamitos Beach/downtown residents (TAPS) in a "parking study" produced a City Hall-hired consultant.)

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There was no public testimony (as city staff hadn't provided any information for public review prior to the "study session.")

Neither city staff, nor Mayor Garcia, nor any Councilmembers mentioned that one week earlier (Dec. 11), a Mayor-chosen "Task Force" had sought what it euphemistically described as a "dedicated local revenue source" [possible tax increase ballot measure] to produce its desired $25 million in annual revenue for additional homeless and low-income housing spending.

Developing.

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