As a City Council Member the annual city budget review and approval process is always a challenging task. It becomes much more difficult when city finances are tight because of state and local impacts on our city’s general fund.
In evaluating and approving our city budget this fiscal year it is the City Council’s responsibility to find a balance between service levels to the citizens of Foster City and a prudent use of City general fund reserves. It requires deliberation, tough choices and a vision for the city’s financial future.
Last week at our Park and Recreation Advisory Committee meeting we had a matrix on park maintenance of how often each park gets watered, mowed, trimmed, cleaned, and on and on. With the elimination of just 1 park maintenance worker there is a noticeable impact to the parks. When you eliminate 2 workers there is a huge impact.
This makes you realize you just can’t go and start cutting jobs to fix our budget. This year as last year we are going to dip into our reserves and this is where the real juggling act begins. We have to protect our reserves for future years while trying to maintain the best services we can to our community this year.
Most cities on the peninsula are struggling with budget deficits that are a lot bigger than ours, and service cuts will be noticeable. We are very fortunate that former councils, and the current council have worked hard to maintain our reserves.
I hope future councils will look back and thank us for saving some reserves for Foster City.
I can be reached via e-mail rcox@fostercity.org.
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