That double dose of good
news means that Ojai city government — on the brink of bankruptcy
just two years ago — is progressing ahead of schedule on its
five-year plan to regain financial balance, officials said.
The city had been on a fiscal free-fall that cut reserves from $4
million to $9,000, but over the past two years a reduction of six
city jobs and higher sales at a larger, remodeled Ojai Valley Inn
& Spa have put the battered budget back in shape.
“It took us several years to get into bad circumstances,”
said city manager Jere Kersnar, hired 18 months ago to oversee a fix.
“And it will take us somewhat longer to get out. But we have
a plan, and it’s working.”
“The bottom line,” he said, “is that we’re
doing just fine. We’re up 5 percent in general fund revenue
this year. We’ll do a little better than our budget projected.”
In a midyear analysis the City Council will consider Tuesday, Kersnar
reports that despite $22,000 in cleanup costs for the December windstorm,
the city will end its current fiscal year on June 30 with a general
fund surplus of at least $618,000, up from $586,000 originally projected.
That enhanced surplus comes after the city absorbed the first month
of lost revenue from closure of its only new car dealership—an
$83,000-a-year hit from the defunct Ford dealership at the Y entry
point to the city.
“Now that we have completed half of the fiscal year, we have
a better picture of the city’s financial position, and I am
pleased to report the solid performance shown in the first quarter
has continued into the second,” Kersnar says in his report to
the council.
The city is on track to save about eight percent of its $7.97-million
revised budget for basic services during this fiscal year, he said.
That would push city savings to nearly $1.4 million—still far
short of its $3.55- million target for an emergency fund. But growing.
And a strategy for the redevelopment agency to pay the city for services
it has provided for free historically could help too.
“It’ll probably take three more years, not counting any
payments we get from the redevelopment agency,” Kersnar said
in an interview this week. “So it’s still too early to
think about major new spending initiatives.”
Still, the biggest need could be $8 million in street repairs the
Public Works Department identified last year, he said.
“That’s just to get the streets up to reasonable shape,”
Kersnar aid. “I doubt we’ll ever have that much (extra
money).”
But once the city reaches its $3.55 million in emergency reserves—or
nearly half of the general fund—by 2010, things become more
interesting, he said. “Then we can redirect that $650,000 of
surplus a year,” he said.
Kersnar said it was easy to understand Ojai’s budget problems
when he arrived in town in November 2005.
“This is a small town and it has a pretty simple budget,”
he said. “The bigger the city the harder it is to figure out
the problem. But here, I use the analogy of the household budget.
All we have to do is balance our basic budget and take care of the
rainy day.
“Although democracies are never nimble, small democracies are
nimbler,” he said.
The key in balancing the Ojai city budget, he said, is to understand
that 60 percent of the money comes from property tax (15 percent),
sales tax (16 percent) and the tax on hotel rooms (more than 28 percent).
While property and sales taxes were down slightly in the first half
of the year, room taxes nearly made up for that, Kersnar reported.
And revenues from other sources pushed the city’s income above
budget projections. State payments to the city reflect a healthy California
economy overall, he said. “All revenues other than the Big Three
(property, sales and room taxes) “are now projected to end the
year about $350,000 over estimates,” he reports to the council.
As a result, general fund revenues—those that pay for police,
recreation, street repair and other basic services—are projected
at $7.97 million for the year ending in June, compared with the original
estimate of $7.59 million, he reported.
“The financial position of the city’s general fund has
improved only slightly compared with three months ago,” Kersnar
reports. “Nonetheless, it is a slight improvement, which is
better than the alternative.
“Perhaps the best way to characterize the city’s finances
at the mid-year...is to say that no news is good news,” Kersnar
concludes. “Although we are not experiencing a big upswing in
revenues, neither are we slumping.
“Looking at the long term, we continue to review ways to restore
the city’s reserves as quickly as possible. If we can do so...we
will be able to free up $500,000 or more in cash flow each fiscal
year to meet council priorities...We have some way to go to meet that
goal, but we are making steady progress toward it.”
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