By KATE DOLAN/for The Herald — Last week on May 15, the Oakridge Budget Committee met at City Hall to continue the discussion of the proposed FY 2023-24 city budget. The night’s meeting focused on the General Fund. Budget discussions include those of the Library, Parks, Building and Planning, Municipal Courts, and the Willamette Activity Center (WAC).
The meeting opened with a motion by Mayor Bryan Cutchen.
A change in how to look at the budget
“I move to request that staff reduce expenditures in each fund, equal to or less than resources, excluding net working capital and beginning balance funds,” said Mayor Cutchen. “The only exception for this is for funds where the city council has made a decision to make a capital investment, in which case the corresponding reduction in capital funds has been acknowledged.”
The Mayor introduced the motion by stating that most of the funds in the city budget have an operating deficit, “which means they intend to spend more than they intend to take in this next year.”
“The bottom line is you can’t spend more than you take in,” said the Mayor. “I think it’s time to address that, instead of acknowledging that every single fund virtually is operating in a deficit.”
Council members who agreed with Mayor Cutchen expressed frustrations over budget errors and the need to spend sustainably. Others expressed concern over the time it would take for department staff to revise and submit budgets that would meet motion requirements.
Councilor Hollett resists not accepting beginning balances
City Council member Christina Hollett commented that the motion was premature.
“I can understand discussing this topic but I think it would be more reasonable to discuss this once we have gone through all of the department budgets,” said Hollett.
Ms. Hollett asked the Mayor what he would recommend to departments starting off with a budget in a deficit. The Mayor said that the budget committee can recommend reductions and appropriations but then “leave it up to the staff who are the experts to figure out how to make those numbers meet.”
The motion passed, with supporters in favor of “operating with real numbers” and not wanting to waste time looking at budgets with numerous errors or spending money they don’t have.
Ms. Hollett questioned the need for a meeting since budgets would have to be revised. Hollett made a motion to continue the meeting and allow staff to revise the funds that are operating in a deficit. The motion was seconded by Council member Dawn Kinyon but failed to pass.
The Committee began to review the library budget just over 25 minutes after the beginning of the meeting. The library budget includes wages and professional services such as IT and computer support. The library employs one half-time person.
Parks budget goes under the microscope
The Parks budget discussion dealt with the costs of maintaining and updating public restrooms. For example, the installation of touch-less faucets and touch-less flushers at Greenwaters Park cost $9,000 according to Robeart Chrisman, Public Works Supervisor.
These updates were made to accommodate pandemic-era concerns. Other restrooms, such as facilities at Diamond View Park, incur costs due to vandalism.
Public works part-time employee numbers scrutinized
Personnel was also a point of discussion in the parks budget, which listed personnel at 0.2 fulltime equivalent (FTE), a figure that was questioned for being low.
“Public works has put more into the parks than a 0.2 FTE in the past 5 years and it’s not going to get any better until everything gets fixed,” said Mr. Chrisman. “In the summertime, I usually have crew of 4 guys on a regular basis just trying to keep the grass mowed and the picnic tables cleaned, and whatnot, all over a 1.2 (FTE) all year long.”
When asked whether that number should be increased, Mr. Chrisman said absolutely but added that it wouldn’t be at the moment.
“Right now we are going to keep operating at a 0.2 and do what we have to do to continue to operate our parks in the way that we do and the best that we can,” said Mr. Chrisman. “If we had a magic, miraculous way to pull 1.2 FTE, let’s do so, but right now we don’t. I just want the committee to understand that that’s not how it’s operating right now.”
Rick Zylstra, Community Development Director, explained why the conservative number.
“This is general fund,” said Mr. Zylstra. “If we start talking about raising it to what it really is, it becomes cutting block potential. We are conservative with it to conserve and reserve having our parks.”
Park fee waivers questioned
Further discussion focused on fee waivers and potential revenue for the parks. Colleen Shirley, Finance Director, said that being low on funds that could be donated to the parks and approving waivers instead is “hurting our parks and hurting our revenues.”
The stance was echoed by several attendees. They acknowledged that the waiver process should be more selective. Others brought up that many events could not happen without waivers.
Municipal court does more but gets less
The Municipal Court budget discussion acknowledged the reduced amount in fines and forfeitures the city is receiving. While the amount has decreased, James Cleavinger, City Administrator, said there was a “light at the end of the tunnel” when he introduced recent Oregon legislation that will allow all cities to have speed cameras. Mr. Cleavinger said Oakridge will be looking into cameras.
Police Chief Kevin Martin joined the meeting briefly. While his department wrote $218,000 in citations from July 2022 – April 2023, there was only $35,000 in revenue. Chief Martin explained that different courts give different percentages back and that new case law states that judges can only charge what people can afford.
The discussion of both Building and Planning and the WAC budgets were brief. For the WAC, the utility fee was questioned for a building that is not in use. The heat is on at the bare minimum to avoid deterioration and molding.
The next budget committee is this evening, May 22. The last committee meeting is scheduled for May 24. The City Council’s budget hearing is scheduled for June 1. Citizens will be allowed to comment on the published and approved budget during this noticed public hearing.
George Custer lives in Oakridge with his wife Sayre. George is a former smokejumper from his hometown of Cave Junction, a former captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. and ran a construction company in Southern California. George assumed the volunteer duties as the Editor of the Highway 58 Herald in 2022. He loves riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, building all things wood, and playing drums on the weekends in his office.
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