Ontario committee faces hard fiscal choices
Budget committee meeting Wednesday sparks questions, debate regarding future
By Katie Pizza
Argus Observer
Thursday, March 20, 2008 11:15 AM PDT
Ontario — For the Ontario Budget Committee it was the case of the $800,000 question at its Wednesday night meeting.
That amount is the deficit the city faces during the next two-year fiscal cycle Ontario Finance Director Rachel Hopper said.
The Wednesday night meeting focused almost exclusively on the fiscal deficit and about how the city could come up with enough revenue to “break even” during the next budget cycle.
Now, the city budget carries a cushion of $430,000 in the general revenue fund, stemming from a Qwest franchise fee litigation settlement.
However, that money is a one-time payment, leaving the city at a loss for next year.
Ontario City Councilman Dan Cummings indicated more than $800,000 will be needed. The $800,000, he said, would only push the city out of debt, not solve its fiscal needs.
“The city needs 1.5 million to keep what they got,” Councilman Dan Cummings said. “1.5 is bare bones.”
However, many committee members disagreed on how much money the city would need in order to continue to function.
“I think it’s closer to $2 or $21⁄2 million would get us back to a point where we’re not just chip-sealing the roads,” Ontario Budget Committee member Bob Quinn said.
The dollar amounts — $800,000, $1.5 million, $2 or $21⁄2 million — sparked a great deal of discussion regarding how much the new city revenue committee should seek as a suitable monetary figure.
This led into a discussion of where that money would come from. Committee member Larry Heidbrink was the most vocal on the issue, stating that the sales tax could be an option if placed on the ballot carefully.
“It just wasn’t sold right before,” he said.
He also saw city grants proposed by members of the revenue committee as a temporary fix to a much larger problem.
“We should look into grants that are more permanent,” he said. “$30,000 can outfit a police car but it can’t hire a policeman.”
Money is a key issue with one police challenge — money to pay for a new gang officer — and OPD Capt. Mark Alexander brought the issue to the budget committee Wednesday night in the hopes it could find the revenue for the slot.
He presented the idea of a surcharge or 47 cent levy to fill that position.
Heidbrink pointed out the fact OPD has the salary of one officer in the budget who has not been hired.
“We budgeted one,” Alexander said. “It hasn’t been filled.”
Alexander also said he was attempting to hire another officer to fill a position vacated by a retirement, however that position is not in the budget.
“Let’s fill those positions first,” Heidbrink said.
Ontario City Councilman and budget committee member Lewie Allen supported the police force.
“People won’t realize (they need police) until they lose somebody, or there’s a big fire, or a gangster we don’t send up to Brogan,” he said, referring to Billy Jo Evans, who sparked last week’s police standoff in Ontario.
Heidbrink proposed a solution to the lack of funds in the form of raising utility franchise fees from 5 percent to 7 percent.
However, Hopper informed him that franchise fee contracts were all negotiated at different times and would not represent a lump sum to the city.
“Five franchises don’t all re-negotiate at the same time,” Hopper said.
Committee chairman Bruce Hunter stressed the importance of communication with community members to help the situation.
“What we’re trying to do is come up with something that the residents of Ontario will buy into,” Hunter said. “They need to understand that we are in trouble. We haven’t saved the swimming pool, haven’t saved the library. We can’t keep running the way we’re running.”
Some budget committee members said the issue should be sent to the revenue committee to bring more information before the council before any decisions were made.
“I support the police greatly, but we need to know where that money is going to come from,” Quinn said.
However, Ontario City Councilman John Gaskill was against the idea of bringing it to the council, since so many council members were already present at the budget meeting itself.
“It’s a little bit hard for me to want to postpone something that I am supposed to be hearing,” he said. “It’s a different deal.”
Hunter voiced his opinion on the subject.
“There is more City Council than there are the rest of us,” he said.
City Recorder Tori Barnett informed Gaskill he was not functioning as a City Council member at this particular meeting but as a member of the budget committee. The committee decided to send the issue to the revenue committee, slated to begin meeting the first week of April.
