Saratoga News

Budget meetings begin June 3 with some cause for optimism

By Sarah Lombardo

Saratoga officials say the city can look forward to a period of modest growth in the next few years, and they plan to unveil a budget reflecting that at the first of two budget hearings, scheduled for the Saratoga City Council meeting Wednesday, June 3, at 7:30 p.m. The council will discuss the budget and take comments from residents.

"It is an opportunity for the public to come down and say their piece about what should and should not be included in the budget," City Manager Larry Perlin said.

According to Perlin, the city is expected to bring in $10,413,774 in revenues in 1997-98, and officials are estimating that the city will earn $10,711,863 in 1999--a gain of almost $300,000.

The increase is a small one but marks a welcome change after the budget crunch of last year, when city staffers and the council were struggling to take more than $1 million out of the budget to make up for the 1996 loss of the utility-users tax and its matching tax-equity allocation funds.

But even with the expected gain, staffers said they plan to be cautious with next year's budget. "It's a conservative budget forecast," Perlin said.

Councilmembers are also being cautious. At preliminary budget discussions, councilmembers said they felt uneasy about Perlin's inclusion of expected tax-equity allocation funding from the county. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors had promised last year they would give the city nearly a year's worth of TEA funds--almost $800,000--over a two-year period to help soften the blow to the city's budget. However, it is still uncertain when the city will receive the funds.

Currently, however, the largest stumbling block to the budget seems to be the possible loss of the vehicle license fees. The fees are collected by the state Department of Motor Vehicles, then funneled to counties and cities. They represent Saratoga's single-largest revenue source, bringing in about $1.2 million. Gov. Pete Wilson and a number of state legislators have been espousing the cause of repealing the tax.

[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]