City Council's New Proposed Budget Cuts

City Council President Tony Young and Councilman David Alvarez formally announced a proposal on Tuesday that could save the city $47 million without effecting essential city services.

Councilman Alvarez said he compiled a list of budget saving proposals from a menu of items available for the city to cut.

The solutions come from five basic areas.

"Transferring of under-utilized budget surpluses to the general fund yields about 17 million in savings," Alvarez said.

Other ideas include cutting non-core city services saving the city $12 million; getting new revenues from fees and property sales would save the general fund $9.5 million; transferring the payments for the Convention Center Phase 2 expansion to CCDC and accelerating the re-payment of general fund debt owed by the redevelopment agency would save $3.5 million; and savings from managed competition and the sale of city street lights would save the city $4.77 million.

The savings would go beyond fiscal year 2012 with a projected surplus in 2015, he said. If the Mayor accepts the proposal, the city would still have to save an additional $10 million in 2012 and 27 million in 2013, Alvarez explained.

The proposal would shrink the city's debt from $56.7 million to less than $10 million, Alvarez said.

Alvarez said these are not new suggestions, but taken from budget saving measures proposed by local citizen groups and other city council members.

Young said the city council is trying to take a much more proactive way of providing the mayor with budget cutting solutions.

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