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Council
Expected to Approve $194 Million Budget
City Manager:
Fiscal year 2008-09 budget is balanced and reflects a growth of nearly
18 percent
By
Allison Jean Eaton
Bulletin Staff Writer
COMPTON – The
City Council was last night expected to approve the fiscal year 2008-09
budget, which represents a nearly 18-percent growth over last year’s,
the biggest jump the city has seen in some time.
The $194 million budget is up 17.93 percent, or almost $35 million,
compared to last year’s $159.4 million budget. The year prior,
the budget was $146.08 million, and the year before that, $142.7 million.
“We’re in pretty sound financial condition,” said
Mayor Eric J. Perrodin, adding that previous city managers had underestimated
revenues and overestimated costs.
The focus of the 2008-09 fiscal year, which begins July 1, lies mainly
in the areas of public safety, economic growth, public infrastructure,
neighborhood livability, community health and governance, said City
Manager Charles Evans.
The reason for the big increase, he said, is related to increases in
personnel, operations and maintenance and capital outlay costs.
Personnel costs have risen by 16.8 percent, or about $10.5 million.
They represent 31 percent of the overall budget. Operations and maintenance
costs grew by 10.8 percent, or about $12.9 million. They represent
61 percent of the budget. Finally, capital outlay costs skyrocketed
by 86.6 percent, or an increase of roughly $12.6 million. They represent
8 percent of the budget.
“The city will experience a significant increase in costs due
to a total of 54.5 new positions,” said Evans. The half of a
position represents a position with the water department that will
not open up until midway
through the fiscal year, he explained.
The new positions are mainly in the Municipal Law Enforcement Services
(MLES) and General Services departments.
Evans said MLES is currently overworked, and the goal is to hire enough
officers to allow them to work in shifts. The additional General Services
employees will be instrumental in the city’s meeting its goal
of keeping parks in better condition.
“Those are positions we emphasized in order to serve the citizens
a lot better,” Evans said. “Our parks are going to look
a little bit different.”
Compton’s budget is broken down into six major fund categories:
General, Special Revenue, Redevelopment, Enterprise, Internal Services
and Debt Service.
The General Fund has a projected revenue of $59.6 million, or about
30.7 percent of the total budget. The Special Revenue Fund is projected
at $49.3 million, or 25.5 percent. Redevelopment comes in at $35.7
million, or 18 percent. The Enterprise Fund is projected at $29.2 million,
or 15 percent. Internal Services is projected at $10.4 million, or
5.8 percent. Debt Service is projected at $9.8 million, or 5 percent.
The preliminary June 17 presentation of the budget given by Evans and
the city’s budget team was much less detailed than in years past,
when categorical breakdowns were explained and presented to the audience
during the public hearing.
Several members of the audience expressed dissatisfaction that members
of the public were not provided with a copy of a budget overview, which
is typically provided but this year was not.
Perrodin said last Tuesday that he and the council members didn’t
receive a copy of the overview until minutes before the meeting because
there had been so many last minute revisions. Because more revisions
were expected to be made between last week’s hearing and yesterday’s,
copies had not been printed up for the audience in a move to save paper.
He added that overviews would be made available at yesterday’s
hearing.
The complete budget is available for review in the City Clerk’s
office at City Hall, 205 S. Willowbrook Ave. on the first floor. Perrodin
added that he hoped to make it available on the city’s Website,
www.comptoncity.org, as well.
As far as the state’s budget woes are concerned, “the city
will continue to monitor the state budget process for changes in funding” for
various programs and services provided to the city that utilize state
funding, cuts to which could negatively impact the city, Evans said.
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