City of Sun Valley FY 2009 Budget:

Many of you listened to the live broadcast and the recording of the August 25, 2008 Sun Valley City Council Meeting where the Council finally debated adoption of the Fiscal 2009 Budget in a public meeting. In my PowerPoint presentation I discussed some of the misperceptions over the soundness of the budget and the ability to use excess fund balances to repair infrastructure that was created by some.

In my continuing effort to make sure as much factual information is available to you as possible, I have now uploaded my presentation so you can view it online. You can click your way through the slide below to view it.

 

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The audio of the August 25, 2008 meeting is available by clicking here. When you have gone to that site to listen to the audio, click on the first “ACTION ITEMS” and it will take you to about where I begin my presentation, which is about 26 minutes into the meeting. You can listen to the audio, and follow along with the slides here on this site.

If you would like to view the presentation in a larger view, you can click here to view it at my Slideshare site (then click on “full”).

Several constituents have asked for a copy of the financial analysis I prepared and presented on the Budget which shows the City in a very strong financial position. I have posted a copy of the analysis on my website and you can view it by clicking here. You can also listen to the on-line audio of my presentation by clicking here. My full PowerPoint presentation is now on-line and you can view it on my Blog by clicking here. 

As I pointed out at the meeting, we reached a compromise on the budget that allowed those who thought it was "fiscally irresponsible" to actually vote for it in the end. My proposed change was to add $25,000 to economic development and to pay for it by taking it out of the recreation line-item. The rest of the Council was opposed to that idea, but in the end we found the money for economic development in the road budget. I am a great supporter of recreation, but if the City is going to consider floating a bond issue in the future to finance street repairs, spending money on recreation outside the City will make passage of the bond much more difficult.

We were able to finalize the FY 2009 Budget on August 25th with a few small changes to the Tentative Budget. I am very pleased with this final budget. We added $35,000 to our Economic Development efforts; $150,000 to purchase two smaller busses for around-town service (something I am very happy about), and adjusted the street repavement budget downward by $185,000. As always, these things are a compromise, and it is good to have this finished and we can now move on to other important City business.

Since we concluded the budget process, we have cancelled the Tuesday, August 26th meeting.

I will post the Final FY 2009 Budget here as soon as staff has had the time to put it together. To download the Tentative Fiscal Year 2009 Budget, click here.