Last night, council faced an extremely difficult decision regarding the retirement benefits for police we will hire from July onward. Current plans allow police personnel to retire with a “3% at 50″ formula. This retirement package gives police officers 3 percent of their highest salary for each year of service, up to 30 years, and it allows employees to retire at age 50.

The vote last night changes the formula to “3% at 55.”

• The change will only effect new hires from July 2008. Current employees are not effected
• Our police force is comprised of tremendously dedicated folks who are stretched to the maximum. While some may think our town is “sleepy” and needs for law enforcement is minimal, the truth is this very hardworking group of professionals makes it look very easy. SCPD desperately needs additional hires.
• The change may make it difficult to hire officers in an extremely competitive environment.

So why vote for this change? The biggest reason is the long term saving effect of change could mean greater than $500,000 per year.

I can’t candy-coat the dire situation our city finances are in. There are no easy choices left – next year will be worse. The mayor stated it well: the city should not hire folks and make promises we cannot fulfill. Police officers do hard work and put their lives on the line. We need to honor the commitments we make to them.

So we are left with a challenge of recruiting and retaining personnel for our police force. One idea I pushed last night and would like to see moved forward is the use of home-buyer program money from the San Carlos RDA directed toward police. This is a “restricted” pool of money that we may be able to use. I’ll look forward to reporting back to you when I hear from city staff.

Following the end of the Civil War, many communities set aside a day to mark the end of the war or as a memorial to those who had died. (1)

Today we take time to remember and honor those who have given to their country their last full measure of devotion. Please take a moment to reflect how much has been paid for the freedoms we take for granted.

To the dedicated members of our armed forces – we thank you for your sacrifices.

(1) Memorial Day

Let me congratulate all the terrific folks who organized Hometown Days. Linda Teutschel & Nancy Gutgsell did tremendous work as the co-chairs for the event. They were helped by Lesley Bone, Judy Litteer and Glenna Eaton and a cast of hundreds of dedicated volunteers.

For those who watched the parade, pounded pavement during the fun run, ate pancakes or enjoyed the music – well, you know that this is a wonderful event! Thank you to all!

When the Council had the budget workshop, these issues of fiscal restraint seem clear and plain. The work at hand was also clear: ensure the fiscal sustainability of our city. We have to build a sustainable budget.

So how do we do this? From the spending side we do the following:

On the income side:

I’m reminded of the fable The Emperor’s New Clothes. The fact is our town is “dressed up” but given our current fiscal condition we need to examine our city’s services and amenities with clear eyes and recognize our situation as troubled.

There was an interesting question that came up yesterday’s Chamber of Commerce meeting: What should City staff do – and what should the Council do to address this issue?

Staff is doing their job and has been alerting council of the deteriorating situation.
Council needs to explain the situation to every citizens in every venue that can be found. Then Council needs to lead with solutions and aggressively pursue this issue.

As always – I’d love to hear your thoughts…

You may choose any number of reasons why Vallejo is in the position of declaring bankruptcy.

I choose to view the event as a cautionary tale. San Carlos enjoys a number of amenities, is a safe city and is filled wonderful folks we are proud to call neighbors. Keeping San Carlos the “City of Good Living” has real costs associated with its maintainence and growth. If you manage a household or run a business, you know you have to make your dollar stretch in order to make ends meet. Sometimes, you make hard choices and put purchases aside for another day. Sometimes you have to make significant changes in your lifestyle and adjust to new thinking.

San Carlos is in the same position. Simply stated, our costs exceed our income. Worse yet, our costs are growing at a rate greater than our income. The gap between what we have and what we are obligated to pay is getting bigger everyday. Just as your household expenses have gone up (electricity, gas, food, insurance) the same has happened to our city.

Let me be clear on this point: not all the costs the city is responsible for are of our choosing. Our city has been saddled with mandated requirements and are told to “figure out” how to pay for it. These expenses are considerable, and growing.

As always, our city has balanced the budget. How do we do it? For the last several years, we have dipped into our savings. This year, about half our shortfall was made in cuts to the budget and the rest made up by dipping into city savings.

We have all thought this was fine; I mean we’ve been doing this for years, what’s the problem? When we project out a few years we quickly realize simply “balancing” the budget means wiping out city savings. Our choices of cuts to make will be extremely hard, and we could look a lot like what Vallejo is living through.