City Manager Talks Budget, Prepares for Series of Worksessions

Editor's note: the following letter was mailed to more than 100 community leaders and residents late last week. It preludes a series of budget workshops in which the City Council, City Manager and other staff will outline the 2011-2012 budget. The first workshop is set for May 10, at 10 a.m. at City Hall.

Dear Fellow Residents of Rohnert Park;

As we have all discovered in the last few years, we l¡ve in challenging times.

As your City Manager, let me give you some background about the financial situation of the city of Rohnert Park.

The "Great Recession," still lingering, revealed a basic financial truth about the city; that we were living beyond our means: The combination of greatly reduced revenues, state takeaways and past spending patterns has created a structural deficit, with our expenditures greatly exceeding our available revenues. We all know one cannot run a household too long in that condition. Neither can a city long exist in that situation. Ominously, responsible people made statements more than a year ago that the city was heading towards bankruptcy if we didn't continue to take strong steps to address our problems. For our proud city, that is an untenable position.

After the onset of the recession, we realized we had to take quick action and in the past two and a half years we have reduced our annual expenditures by about $7 million dollars. We have reduced the city staff from 191 to 153 positions, or 38 positions. We have asked our employees to join with us and help us in this cost cuttlng crusade. Our goal is fiscal health, and though that is still some years away, we have and will continue to carve a positive path towards that critical objective.

As an example of the city's financial issues, in just one area, retiree health benefits, we have an unfunded liability (future commitment for payment for which no funds have been set aside) of over $53 million.

It is important to understand that the city has no choice in this economic environment but to live within our means. We must look carefully at every operation, at every department to determine how we can continue to provide excellent city services to our citizens, but to do so in a way which respects our financial limitations.

It is in this context that we are continuing to look at all the services that the city provides, to see if we are doing this in the most effective way, whether there are more effective or lower cost alternatives to delivery of those services, and whether greater cooperation with our nearby public agencies can produce benefits and lower costs.

-City Manager Gabe Gonzalez