ORANGE : Council Plans Close Budget Evaluation

The City Council voted unanimously last week to take a hands-on approach to the city’s burgeoning deficit, deciding to meet with every City Hall department head in the coming weeks to comb the budget for possible cuts.

“Austerity must be (the council’s goal) as well as the goal of all our departments,” a memo from Council Members Joanne Coontz and William G. Steiner stated.

In the broad strategy presented last Tuesday, Coontz and Steiner suggested the council attain “a line-by-line understanding” of budget expenses before approving any reductions.

The council memo followed a report from City Manager Ron Thompson that outlined ways to contain a $4.6-million shortfall projected for fiscal 1991-92, a deficit triple that of the 1990-91 fiscal year.

Thompson had recommended that department heads squeeze another 5% from budgets that have already been reduced by 10% and proposed voluntary furloughs for city employees, among other cuts.

The council members said the deficit’s surprising growth encouraged them to take a detailed look at the budget to determine which programs and services were essential.

“We are not micro-managing this budget,” Steiner insisted. “But it’s interesting what we sometimes find in line-by-line expenditures.”

The council members’ plan currently has no specific recommendations for cutbacks, pending the conferences with department heads, but aims to “balance the budget through prioritization and a more cost-effective delivery of services,” according to the memo.

The plan also urged the council to stick to a set budget, eliminating discretionary funding of extra projects requested by staff, council members, community groups or residents.

In the spirit of austerity, Mayor Gene Beyer said he would soon recommend that council members “brown-bag it” for dinner between the afternoon and evening council sessions each week. Currently, the city foots the bill for council members’ dinners on meeting nights.

“It’s not a great amount of money,” Beyer admitted, “but we can ease up on our stomachs” during the recession.