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Friday, February 10, 2012
Plan to combine some city/county services advances
by Kathleen Haley, published on December 8, 2009 at 9:41 PM
Storyline: City Services
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The Sacramento City Council is open to the idea of consolidating some of the services offered by the city and county governments.
Councilmembers unanimously decided Tuesday that city staff should analyze the issue over the next 90 days, and then bring their findings to the City Council. The discussion about consolidating services is moving forward as both the city and county struggle with severe budget problems.
Councilman Rob Fong strongly supported the idea. If the city and county can have “virtually identical” regulatory processes for businesses, then organizations like the Sacramento Area Commerce & Trade Organization and the city and county’s economic development departments could market Sacramento as a “dynamic region,” he said.
Uniform processes at the city and county governments could also lead to better land-use planning decisions, Fong said. He acknowledged that his ideas may be too expansive for the 90-day period, but said he hoped staff’s analysis would move beyond everyday issues such as “who picks up the leaves.”
“We would do ourselves a disservice if we didn’t start to have those kinds of conversations,” Fong said.
Staffers will now select services that could potentially be combined, according to Assistant City Manager Gus Vina’s report to councilmembers.
Vina said Monday that combining services could save money in the long term for local governments. In addition, joining services could eliminate redundancies, Vina said. The city and county provide several similar services, he said, such as animal control and code enforcement.
City Finance Director Leyne Milstein said her office is not ready yet to provide an estimate for the city’s budget situation next year. Staffers still need to analyze third quarter sales tax information, she said. However, she estimated in May that the city would face a $30-million deficit in the 2010/11 fiscal year.
She acknowledged Monday that the city’s budget for next year could be troubling, saying that “nothing has changed” since her May estimate of a $30-million deficit.
The county’s budget crisis is severe: Its $180-million gap last spring was followed by a $76-million shortfall in the summer.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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Who pays for the Mayor's trip? I recall during his campaign he often criticized Fargo for trips. I realize Fargo's trips were to another country and Johnson's trips are (so far) to other cities and states. But Fargo's trips and public safety was often criticized by Johnson. If the Mayor's conference has no significant purpose perhaps he should of stayed in Sac - since it is freezing weather and some homeless folks don't feel they are taking steps forward- but feel they are taking steps- in the cold- without shelter---- backwards. I'm all for him going tfor the purpose of learning something significant but if not he should stay in Sac and put some of that time, energy and drive into issues of importance to city residents (including low income residents homelessness and massive suppression overshadowing significant prevention) Hopefully the mayor will come back with more than I found a way to put even more cops and camera's on the streets and give us scientific -based, researched- based ,evidence- based models of PREVENTION.