Cuts to employee compensation and the discovery of more than $20 million in untapped reserves will allow the city to close its estimated $60 million budget gap without cutting services or laying off employees, Mayor Jerry Sanders said today.
Sanders proposes to make up about half of the $30 million gap with proposed labor concessions that depend on the City Council’s decision at tomorrow’s impasse proceedings. The cuts would be equivalent to about 6 percent of employee compensation, Sanders said.
More than $22 million would come from reserves of hotel taxes. Sanders said previous city managers may have created the pots of money, but he is planning to tap them to pay for one-time expenses and balance this year’s budget.
Nearly $7 million would come from new or increased user fees, such as raising the price of fire inspections and increasing the fines for overdue library books. Another $4 million would come from higher franchise fees.
I’ll have more on the spending proposal later today. You can read the details here. And feel free to e-mail me at rani.gupta@voiceofsandiego.org with anything you find and your thoughts.