Anderson contemplates a 16.2 percent reserve after cutting one part-time clerk

While other government entities in Shasta County continue to hack huge chunks out of their general fund budgets this year, Anderson is retaining a reserve of more than 16 percent and cutting just two part-time positions this next budget year.

Nearing the end of his 11th year as Anderson’s city manager, Scott Morgan presented his sixth two-year budget to the council Tuesday, May 19, during the last of five budget workshops.

Former mayor Keith Webster went through the 2009-2011 budget with a fine-tooth comb during the 75-minute workshop but found only $8,300 that he could whittle out of the nearly $5.4 million general fund.

And the lion’s share – a $6,000 subsidy of the Anderson Chamber of Commerce – of those trimmed expenditures was simply transferred onto the expense side of the city’s Redevelopment Agency ledger.

During the past two years, Morgan and the five-member council have cut a total of three managers, three police officers and five full- or part-time positions from the city’s roster of 72 employees.

Most of those positions were left vacant when people either retired or otherwise left the city’s employ, Morgan noted.

The most recent position targeted for termination at the end of June is a part-time Public Safety Records Clerk in the Anderson Police Department, Morgan noted.

However, using Department of Justice grant funding and federal economic stimulus funds, Police Chief Dale Webb is hoping, if the grant is approved, to fund an entry-level, full-time police officer for three years.

With revenues continuing to decline, Anderson officials trimmed $103,367 or 1.8 percent off the budget that ends June 30.

Morgan is predicting that the city’s general fund revenues for fiscal year 2009-2010 will drop another 2.6 percent or $146,100. A further reduction in revenues of 1.7 percent or $92,600 is anticipated for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, he said.

“In proposing a reduced, balanced general fund budget for 2009-2010, the City Council’s adopted policy goal of maintaining a general fund balance of between 15 percent and 20 percent of expenditures is met,” Morgan announced, calling the 16.2 percent reserve a “prudent cushion given the risks cities and counties in California are facing as a result of the state’s continuing fiscal crisis.”

A public hearing is set for June 2 prior to any action the Anderson City Council might take on the proposed 2009-2011 budget.