After the first quarter of the fiscal year, city revenues are only about half of what was projected, but city finance officials said they aren’t ready to panic yet. The negative balance for the city budget is not just related to lower-than-anticipated revenues – a large part of the imbalance is due to greater-than-anticipated expenditures. The $812 million city budget is running negative at the moment – “typical” for the first quarter of the fiscal year, according to the most recent report from the city Finance Department. The first quarter financial report will be presented to the City Council Tuesday. Of the six main sources of revenue for the city – property tax, utility user tax, sa

The deadline for paying the second installment of your 2010-2011 Sacramento County property taxes is coming up! Payments are due no later than April 10; however, because April 10 falls on a Sunday this year, taxpayers have until the next business day, Monday April 11, 2011, to pay the second installment without penalty. Late payments will incur a 10 percent penalty plus $15.00 cost for each tax bill. Partial payments cannot be accepted. If you recently purchased the property for a lesser value or you are disputing the assessed value with the Assessor’s Office or the Assessment Appeals Board, the annual tax bill must still be paid by the delinquent date to avoid the addition of penalties.

The city of Sacramento may need to lay off as many as 100 to 200 city staffers as it makes cuts to balance its budget, Interim City Manager Gus Vina said Friday. Vina proposed a draft budget Friday that would erase a $43 million gap. In the proposed budget, programs and services would face $14.6 million in cuts. The removal of all vacant positions and possible concessions from labor unions would amount to $19.6 million. Vina also plans to apply $8.8 million in other funds to the budget. Vina’s draft general fund budget figure for the 2010 / 2011 fiscal year is $360.3 million. “None of this is easy,” Vina said in an interview Friday. “We have only so much income and we have to have a bal

The Sacramento City Council discussed its 2009/2010 budget Tuesday, but the news of the night was the city’s forecast that it will have a $30 million projected deficit in the 2010/2011 fiscal year. Sacramento’s proposed budget for the 2009/2010 fiscal year would resolve the city’s current project $50 million deficit, but a new deficit is on the horizon. Leyne Milstein, the city’s finance director, said the city is balancing its books for the 2009/2010 fiscal year in part by using $8.3 million in one-time funds. She predicts the $8.3 million projected deficit already expected for 2010/2011 will jump to $30 million. “Gap will grow to $30 million as revenues continue to decline and expense