Editorial Editorial (February 03, 2006)

New finance director to benefit from Rossi's budget skills

City Finance Director Sue Rossi plans to retire this summer and her successor could be named as early as next week so that the two have time to work together on planning next year's financial report. This could be one of the easiest transitions ever. Rossi, as the city's long-time financial chief, always looks ahead to make sure any concerns have time to be addressed. Her work in preparing the city's current record-high $170-million operating budget for Fiscal Year 2005-06 continued her fiscal policies of planning for the best, but preparing for the worst. That's why Pleasanton's city government has managed to continue full operations and services without a blip during bad economic times and when the state took money away from cities and counties to cover multi-billion-dollar deficits in Sacramento. While some cities were unprepared financially to handle the local revenue shortages and were forced to close parks and lay off personnel, Pleasanton moved ahead with a list of priorities that included building the Callippe Preserve golf course and other costly amenities.

In her recent overview of city finances to a Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce committee, Rossi said she actually prepares two budgets each year--one, an operating budget that covers only a year or two of day-to-day services, including the city payroll and its pension plan contributions, and a Capital Improvements Budget that provides funding when needed for major acquisitions, infrastructure needs, and, this year, for the first three lighted baseball fields that will be built on the Bernal property. Besides looking at this fiscal year, she also has the budget planned for fiscal 2006-07, which starts July 1, probably after she has retired. This will include a $5.1-million reserve that the city has maintained as a set-aside should rough times return, such as the recession of 2001.

Despite losing another $4 million in state take-aways this fiscal year, Rossi's conservative budgeting approach enabled the city to continue supporting its community grants program, TV30 community television, the Chamber's Leadership program, and funding it provides to the Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Pleasanton Downtown Association. At the same time, 7 percent of the total General Fund budget was also transferred to the Capital Improvements budget for ongoing needs.

Rossi has good news for her successor. Because revenues for last year's fiscal budget exceeded projections by $1.7 million and expenditures came in well under budget, there was a $4 million surplus which Rossi, with the approval of the City Council, set aside for debt service. She's already been given approval to set that aside again next year as part of her two-year budget through June 30, 2007, and is projecting enough surplus to do the same through 2009, all of it pledged to cover the $1.8 million in debt service for the Callippe golf courses bonds.

Rossi is projecting that next year's budget will climb another 8.9 percent to about $185 million. At the same time, operating expenditures show a projected increase of 1.8 percent to $158 million, and a 7 percent increase in the following fiscal year to $169 million. Even so, she sees property taxes continuing to provide rising revenue for the municipal budget, a trend she expects to continue for at least several more years. Revenue from sales taxes, motel and hotel taxes and vehicle and business fees are also growing, which is more good news for Rossi and her successor.

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