The Sonoma City Council adopted a two-year base-operating budget for the 2008/09 fiscal years at a special meeting on Wednesday lasting almost 5 hours. The adopted two-year operating budget is $25,082,967, which includes two additional base budget items that came before the council with a bit of controversy: our local non-profit organizations and the landscape and lighting assessment districts.
While Mayor Stanley Cohen suggested a base budget increase of $240,000 for the local non-profits, council member August Sebastiani wanted actually to wean them from dependency of the city’s finances. “I’d like to urge that we have an eye for the future,” Sebastiani said. “I support what they’re doing – I just don’t think it’s the city’s job to fund the non-profits.” Council member Ken Brown suggested an increase, to $300,000 for the coming year. The final result was however to adopt the mayor’s suggestion for one year – see how the funds fare – then revisit the issue. Just who gets what is yet to be decided.
The council eliminated the city’s landscape and lighting assessment districts. This elimination added another $67,000 to the city’s base operating budget while at the same time providing a significant benefit to the residents of these assessment districts – saving them from landscape and lighting related improvement costs. “I want to keep all of our citizens the same – it’s not fair for the city to pay for some neighborhood’s landscape and lighting and not others,” council member Steve Barbose said. “I’m in favor of doing away with the assessment districts.” So they did.
The transient occupancy tax (TOT) continues to lead as the city’s projected revenue producer for the next two years with an estimation that exceeds $2.6 million for FY 2008 and nearly $2.8 million for FY 2009. “For all of our investments – the TOT is where it’s at,” mayor pro tem Joanne Sanders said.
Mayor Cohen judged that the city’s finance reserves are adequate and that the reserve amounts comply with the city’s established policy. The adopted city budget for FY 2008 is $12,702,210 and $12,380,757 for FY 2009.
