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Budget Cuts and Efficiencies

Over the last five years, the City has eliminated lower-priority services and aggressively pursued ways to make our local government more efficient. We've cut nearly $24 million of planned and existing expenses. Following are a few specific examples of cuts that have been made and efficiencies:
  • Eliminated more than 150 jobs: 106 FTE in 2006; 48 FTE in 2010
  • Eliminated several middle management positions and combined some departments including:
    • Created the one-stop development shop
    • Consolidated Information Technology staff into a centralized organization
    • Eliminated policy and finance positions within several departments
  • Restructured City employee health benefits so that employees bear greater out-of-pocket cost burden. For example, employees with dependents now pay 30% of the premium cost as compared to 15% in 2005.
  • Consolidated health plans from four choices to two
  • Eliminated retiree health care benefits (medical, dental, vision) as of Jan. 1, 2010
  • Reduced the City's contribution for pension from 7.5% to 6.5% for employees hired April, 2007, or later.
  • No pay raises in 2004, 2005 (except sworn police) & 2010
  • Reduced Street Maintenance by $2 million
  • Using $900,000 of reserves to fund Recreation; reserves run out in 2013
  • Cut $400,000 from Parks Maintenance
  • Reduced night-time paratransit/Dial-a-Ride Service
  • Eliminated Human Rights Office
  • Automating payroll and paying contractors and vendors electronically to save processing time
  • Developing "Open Book" to ease access to financial data
  • Raised purchasing thresholds to focus more on higher dollar transactions where more money can be saved
  • Dramatically improved financial reporting through automation
  • Significantly lowered power costs in city buildings
  • Implemented server consolidation to save costs for replacement and power

View the complete list of budget cuts from the 2006-2007 Budget process (PDF 42KB)
View the complete list of budget cuts from the 2010-2011 Budget process (PDF 162KB)
View the proposed list of budget cuts for the 2011-2012 Budget process (PDF 302KB)