Mayor Chris Beutler has proposed an austere budget for next year that shows resourcefulness under challenging economic conditions.
Posted: Sunday, July 5, 2009 12:00 am
Mayor Chris Beutler has proposed an austere budget for next year that shows resourcefulness under challenging economic conditions.
Two budget facts are most significant.
For the third year in a row, Buetler proposes to cut city jobs. The 28 positions he has targeted would bring the total number of positions he has eliminated to 143 full-time equivalents.
Credit Beutler for tough decisions.
The budget calls for an increase in taxes but no hike in the city's portion of the property tax rate.
Credit Beutler for craftiness.
City Hall is in dire straits. Sales tax revenue so far this year is down 2.17 percent. City officials are predicting that the amount raised by the city's property tax rate - which has not been raised since 1994 - also will drop next year by 1.25 percent.
Nonetheless, Beutler found a way to avoid some of the most troublesome proposed cuts, such as closure of two small branch libraries, that already had drawn howls of protest from residents.
Instead of proposing to raise the city property tax rate - which the City Council probably would not approve - Beutler turned to possible new sources of revenue.
His proposed increase in the city telecommunications tax, also referred to as an occupation tax, would put the city of Lincoln at the same rate as the city of Omaha.
Judging from Omaha's experience, the increase in the tax from 5.5 percent to 6 or 6.25 percent would not be much of a drag on the continuing proliferation of telecommunication devices and services.
In addition, the city hopes to collect several million from telecommunication firms that have not been accurately applying the existing tax.
Beutler's budget also would make use of $1.4 million the city no longer will pay to the county because of a new, separate tax levy to pay for a new county jail.
As Councilman Jon Camp has argued, that spending also could be called a tax increase.
The bottom line, however, amounts to an actual spending increase of only $63,000 over last year.
Beutler also proposes to reduce the overly generous 2-for-1 match for city employee retirement funds for new employees. While that measure would not do much immediately to improve the city's financial picture, it increasingly would help in future years. It also would reduce a source of chronic irritation among taxpayers.
Beutler's proposed budget now goes to the City Council, which can make revisions before approval.
There may be a devil or two hiding in the details, but on balance Beutler has drawn up a budget that will give Lincoln residents good value for their city taxes.