Community Corner

Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Adopted, Cuts and All

Santa Cruz City Council OKs budget that will shrink deficit and increase reserves.

The Santa Cruz City Council unanimously adopted its budget for the city’s 2012 fiscal year Tuesday after a short presentation by Jack Dille, the city’s finance director. Ten percent cuts are to be instituted through various departments and programs in an attempt to reduce the city's deficit and increase reserves.

Cuts have already saved the city money, and the overall deficit of the city’s general fund has decreased from $2.6 million to $2 million. Dille said he considered this an improvement but warned that this meant only that “the target of savings” by the city had simply gotten smaller.

“We still have significant deficit," Dille said. "We still have a healthy reserve. I won't say it's too healthy; it's not. It's just where it ought to be." 

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If the budget was approved, he said, the city's reserves would increase to an amount he considered adequate. 

The two members of the council who expressed some reservation in voting for the budget were Vice Mayor Don Lane and Councilman Tony Madrigal.

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“There is part of me that really wants to vote against this motion,” said Lane, who said he was bothered about the cuts to community programs. He said that although he agreed with most of the budget, cuts that were made on the community programs represented a “retreat from values that are important to the community.”

Madrigal said he was also bothered with the cuts to the community programs. “I already registered my vote against reducing their funding last time,” he said.


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