The City Council is allowing the city manager’s office to explore new ways of closing the city’s $35 million - 40 million budget gap, including employee pay cuts and benefit rate hikes. The strategies include a 5-10 percent pay cut for all city employees. The City Council unanimously decided on Tuesday to allow city staff to consider a range of ideas for closing the budget shortfall. Councilman Steve Cohn said that examining several options for budget cuts does not mean that he supports them. “I’m fine with looking at a whole potpourri of different ideas,” Cohn said. “I don’t want that to be mistook for supporting any particular strategy at this point.” The city would need to reach an

Three months after Mayor Kevin Johnson and City Councilman Kevin McCarty publicly called for an audit of the Sacramento Utilities Department, the department will be audited extensively. The city’s internal auditor and an outside firm will conduct audits, the City Council decided Tuesday night. The council’s decision comes a year after the Sacramento County Grand Jury claimed in a report that the department may have broken state law Proposition 218. The law says that utilities fees from ratepayers must correspond to the costs of delivering the utilities services. Partly in response to the Prop. 218 issue, a citizens’ group placed a measure on the November ballot to roll back city utilitie

The agenda for September's meeting of the Area 1 Neighborhood Advisory Group (NAG) follows. Lt. Mike Bray hopes to have some updates from the police department on the Second Saturday shootings. Food banks have become a survival resource in todays economic climate. Many city park swiming pools have closed or are slated for closing.  Some Area 1 neighborhoods have managed to keep their pools open. We will hear what their stragities were to achieve this.  Measure B is a controversial ballot measure that could have longterm consequences on how the city utilities department operates and the delivery of services to city residents. Each month's NAG agenda is put together by residents of the

The city of Sacramento sent out pink slips to about 90 employees Wednesday because city management and two unions have not yet found common ground in their contract negotiations. However, Interim Assistant City Manager Patti Bisharat said city officials have not given up on efforts to resolve their differences with the unions. In June, the city closed a $43 million budget gap for the 2011 fiscal year. The two unions that have not made concessions are Stationary Engineers Local 39 and Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447. Local 39 represents employees in numerous city departments, including Utilities, Transportation and Community Development. Bisharat said Tuesday that the city was still

Plans for local regulations on marijuana will share the spotlight with Mayor Kevin Johnson’s strong-mayor proposal at City Hall this month. The City Council will tackle marijuana proposals at its July 13 and July 27 meetings. Before the meetings, the public is invited to weigh in on two proposed medical marijuana rules. A meeting to gather input will be held in the second-floor hearing room of Historic City Hall, 915 I St., on Tuesday at 6 p.m. The city also held a public meeting last month about plans for a medical-marijuana ordinance. At its July 13 meeting, the City Council is scheduled to address a proposal to tax marijuana dispensaries. The idea to tax pot dispensaries is part of a

The city’s $43 million budget gap means that the city’s Neighborhood Services Department won’t be a distinct department much longer. Neighborhood Services, which works with citizens on their concerns with the city government, will be moved into the Parks and Recreation Department to save money, according to a report from Interim Assistant City Manager Patti Bisharat. The Office of Youth Development will also join Parks and Recreation. Interim City Manager Gus Vina has scheduled the changes to be made in July, according to Bisharat’s report. But Neighborhood Services Director Vincene Jones isn’t leaving the city government. Jones will be the manager of Neighborhood Services under the Pa

In the coming months, the city may have three sets of eyes monitoring its books. In addition to the Sacramento City Council’s plans to fill the city’s vacant internal auditor position early next year, the council may bring in two more parties to review the city’s finances, according to members of the Sacramento City Council.  The City Council decided at its Tuesday meeting to start the process of hiring an independent company to audit the city’s finances. The city also plans to fill its currently vacant position for an internal auditor. And, there may be a third set of eyes monitoring the city’s books: Councilman Rob Fong noted that the City Council is likely to approve a proposal from th