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BACKGROUND <br />The City maintains an ongoing review of City finances involving annual, Mid-Year and <br />quarterly reviews of operating and capital budgets. The goal of these reviews is to make <br />adjustments as necessary to reflect changes in revenues and operating expenses. <br />Currently, the City is operating with the Budget adopted in June 2007 covering FY 2007- <br />08 & FY 2008-09. In June 2008, the Council approved aMid-Term Budget update that <br />included adjustments to the Budget's current year. Since that time, there have been a <br />number of budget amendments for approved carryovers and various agenda actions <br />accepting grants and other changes. This report recommends additional Mid-Year <br />adjustments to revenue estimates and expenditure appropriations. While the primary <br />focus of this report is the City's General Fund, which receives revenue from a range of <br />taxes and fees, also addressed are other City funds including Special Revenue Funds <br />where revenues are restricted for specific purposes and Enterprise Funds, such as <br />sewer and water operations, which receive funding primarily from user fees. <br />During the past year, there have been significant financial issues that have impacted not <br />only the City and the region, but the State and the Country overall as well. <br />Unfortunately, these issues have impacted the City's finances and result in the need to <br />make revenue and expenditure adjustments. Fortunately, the City maintains financial <br />policies that are effective in controlling the immediate impact of this financial downturn. <br />In general, these policies will allow budget re-balancing actions without a reduction of <br />services or personnel. Some examples of these policies include the establishment of <br />specific reserve accounts for addressing temporary recessions and economic <br />uncertainty, conservative investment practices and ongoing financial reviews. Financial <br />policies also require the maintenance of various replacement/renovation funds that <br />provide ongoing replacement of equipment, vehicles, streetlights, traffic signals and to <br />make major repairs and renovations to buildings, parks and medians to extend their <br />useful lives. Because these funds referred to collectively as the Replacement Plan and <br />have a 20 to 30 year cash flow focus, they are a valuable financing tool that can be <br />used to smooth out downturns in general revenues by reducing contributions in difficult <br />years and pre-funding contributions in positive years. In preparing this Mid-Year report, <br />staff has adhered to the City's financial policies and has used them to effectively <br />address the current financial condition. <br />DISCUSSION -OPERATING BUDGET <br />Most, if not all, California cities are experiencing a reduction in general revenues that <br />are reflective of issues in the overall economy and the real estate market. Pleasanton is <br />not immune to this situation and has experienced revenue reductions that warrant a <br />$4,992,198 reduction in 2008-09 General Fund revenue estimates. Tax revenue from <br />property, sales, hotel, and business license tax sources and development services fees <br />account for $4,572,909 (92%) of this recommended adjustment. The reduction in <br />estimates for vehicle license fees ($241,000), franchise fees ($57,383), and recreation <br />revenues ($62,909) account for remainder of the recommended revenue adjustments. <br />The reduction in the revenue estimate of $4,992,198 is somewhat mitigated by our <br />reserve policy which calls for the Reserve for Economic Uncertainty to equal 10% of <br />General Fund revenues. When total revenues are adjusted up or down this reserve is <br />adjusted to maintain an amount equal to 10% of the revenue estimate. After this is <br />Page 2 of 10 <br />