The
City Council, facing a budget deficit of $84 million, examined a number of cost
cutting measures that affects the quality of life and safety of the Santa
Teresa Foothills neighborhood. The FY 2009-2010 City budget (passed on June 23)
preserves public safety, neighborhood services, economic development and other
essential City services by streamlining administration and utilizing one–time
revenues to balance the budget.
The
approved budget saves many of the programs that were slated to be cut.
Unfortunately, some programs have been reduced, including traffic calming and
street landscape maintenance. The City will remove the higher maintenance types
of landscaping in the coming months and will only implement traffic calming
projects that improve safety.
Closing the budget deficit of $84 million would not have been possible without
the support of the City’s employees. Nearly all of the employee union groups
came forward to renegotiate their contracts and forego raises in order to save
City services and jobs.
San Jose continued to receive a positive credit rating from three national
rating agencies. S&P rated San Jose with an AAA rating, Fitch rated San
Jose AA+ and Moody rated us Aa1. Having a sound fiscal profile enables San Jose
to borrow at favorable interest rates and it shows confidence in the City’s
financial management, particularly when a number of other Bay Area cities faced
even more severe budget issues.
However,
the State level budget woes are likely to impact San Jose in the future.
Council Members Ash Kalra and Nancy Pyle are involved in dealing with the State
to minimize the fallout on the city.
“I am proud of the fact that my Council colleagues and I
were able to bridge an $80 million budget deficit without a major hit to
services to the community and public safety. However, it looks like we will be
suffering, once again, at the hands of the State as their budget fixes will
inordinately impact our bottom line,” said Council Member Ash Kalra (District
2). “The Governor has proposed taking billions from local jurisdictions. The
impact of the recommended taking to San José is close to $100 million, which is
greater than the hole we just creatively dug ourselves out of in June! Rest
assured we are lobbying hard to fight the State as hard as we can. In the end,
we may lose the battle and tough choices regarding city services may have to be
made. If that is the case, you can be certain that I will do my best to inform
the community of impacts so we can weather this financial storm together.”
While the impact of State cuts has yet to be felt, there are many ways that the
city’s budget cuts affects our neighborhood.