Balance the Budget

When the City Commission was considering it's most recent budget last summer, I presented an alternative to the proposed trash fee.  The sole purpose of this fee is raise new revenue to help balance the budget.  It's not in our constituent's best interests to raise taxes during a recession, especially when we haven't exhausted potential cost-saving measures yet.

As an alternative to the trash fee, I suggested that we implement some of these specific cost-saving measures in the interest of coming in under budget and replenishing the reserve fund:

Fund a professional Energy Coordinator with $130,000 in stimulus money intended for energy efficiency projects (preferably in partnership with County government and the Frankfort Plant Board), and reserve the rest of that stimulus money to implement his or her recommendations. 
If we spend this money on energy conservation, it will immediately start coming back to us in the form of energy savings. A professional coordinator will be able to identify the most cost-effective ways to reduce our energy consumption, saving us considerable amounts of money within the year. The State has told us that they believe this would be an acceptable (and even preferable) way to spend these funds, and this proposal would almost certainly be approved. 

Consider alternatives to the traditional call-and-response model in the Police Department. Increased foot patrols would keep neighborhoods safer while saving on transportation expenses. 

Consolidate the City Commission's charitable giving by letting a third party such as United Way disburse many of these funds for us. They are known for their accountability and follow through, and would ensure more efficient management of our agency contributions. 

Encourage city staff to utilize web meetings (or at least conference calls) whenever appropriate, instead of traveling to hold meetings. 

Police cars are currently serviced at the State garage, at savings to the city. We can transfer the rest of the small vehicles on our fleet into that program as well. 

Adopt an electronic timecard system. 

Require work orders for all field work. 

Allow students who are hired seasonally at the parks department (who frequently don't have enough work to do) to also perform tasks for other departments. 

Sweep downtown streets every other day, instead of daily. 

Stop providing city staff with cell phones, and simply reimburse for work calls made on personal cell phones. 
We should at least downsize our current plan. We provide a few employees with phones even though they're always near an office phone. 

Require anyone taking a car home to keep a thorough log of miles traveled, both on and off the job. This will bring accountability and allow us to identify any potential abuse. It will also serve as a deterrent against excessive personal use. 
Requiring a mileage log in every city vehicle would inevitably reduce the amount of miles traveled, saving the city money with little difficultly. 
(NOTE: I'm suggesting this instead of an outright ban on take-home vehicles, because some employees (such as some emergency responders) need the ability to access their work vehicle at a moment's notice in the event of an emergency. I think requiring a mileage log would be a good first step in determining who should and shouldn't be taking vehicles home). 

The Parking Enforcement vehicle is an old Crown Victoria (a gas guzzler). Much of this work can be done on foot, bicycle, or electric cart. 

Eliminate the contingency fund from the budget. The reserve fund already functions as a de-facto contingency fund. 

Launch a campaign to promote our city buses (and therefore increase revenues). Many people still don't realize we even have a public transportation system. 

Identify more grant opportunities in proposed expenditures. 

Sell the Junipers Hills Golf Course (which we operate at a heavy loss) to someone who will work to keep the course open, or at least raise fees. 

Allow all departments read-only access to the Finance Department's CMI data, and fully bill the Sewer department for administrative costs. This will increase efficiency in the Finance Department, and benefit our general fund.