Will Troutdale Stop Its Annual Budget Deficits?

With an 8-5 vote last night, the Troutdale Budget Committee directed that city staff come back with alternate city budgets to compare with the existing proposed 2012-2013 budget that spends $350,000 from the city's reserve dollars-- an alternate proposed budget that spends only $150,000 from reserves, and one that spends zero dollars from reserves. They want to see what these deeper budget cuts would look like. City staff will be providing these alternate budgets to the committee at the next budget meeting early next month. (See the proposed budget here).



Why the hesitation to spend down the city's reserve funds? The city staff's proposed 2012-2013 budget document stated that the city could only spend down the city's diminishing reserve funds for a "couple more years" at the present rate before becoming unsustainable.

I spoke at the public comment portion of the budget meeting asking that the budget committee direct staff to live within their means and stop the city's deficit spending. The City of Troutdale's budget has been approved with more expenditures than revenues for years, and now their reserves are nearly tapped out.