Budget Advisory Committee Meeting Today

The Council appointed Budget Advisory Committee will be meeting at 3:30pm today at the Senior Center. The Committee is expected to make their final recommendations today and then forward them to the City Council for review.

The Committee's work has been essential to the staff's budget development process as we attempt to close our $11 million budget deficit. I would encourage any interested parties to attend the meeting today to find out what strategies are being explored for deficit reduction.

Speaking of budget deficits, the City Manager of Ventura has an excellent post today on what their City has been doing to address their budget gap. You can read that post here:

http://www.cityofventura.net/cmblog/

As noted in the post, Ventura like every other city is looking seriously at wage cuts and staffing reductions as the critical components of their budget reduction plan. Ultimately, we are each trying to be proactive so that we don't have to take the extreme measures now being implemented in Vallejo. Here's the latest update from Vallejo:

http://www.timesheraldonline.com/news/ci_11965977

and if you are a real glutton for punishment, one more dispatch from Vallejo regarding their latest budget woes--one option proposed is to just dissolve the municipal corporation!

http://www.timesheraldonline.com/news/ci_12000201