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Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009

Livingston avoids cuts with 'bare bones' budget

LIVINGSTON -- The Livingston City Council adopted a bare bones 2009-2010 budget Tuesday night, which reduced spending across the board but stopped short when it came to major cuts in staffing or service levels.

"It's a bare bones budget," said City Councilman Frank Vierra. "In 2009-2010 there are zeros all over the place."

City Manager Richard Warne echoed Vierra's sentiment and added that the only real changes were the cuts that had to be made. "This is a status quo budget," he said.

The only hiccup in voting on the budget came from Councilwoman Margarita Aguilar who requested that the council postpone any vote until the next meeting so there could be more time to look over the budget.

The council did not take her advice.

Mayor Daniel Varela told Aguilar that it was a council member's job to be prepared when items came before them.

The council ultimately voted 3-1 -- Councilman Rodrigo Espinoza was absent -- to adopt the budget.

Overall, the budget numbers differ little compared with last year, but the general fund -- the city's main pot of cash without strings tied to it -- took a fairly substantial hit compared to last year.

The more than $15 million budget is sizably smaller than last year's. The general fund, budgeted at more than $4 million this year was more than $5 million last fiscal year. That means the city's general fund was budgeted down $577,000 compared to last year.

While the city took some hits because of the state and the nation's poor economic health, unlike many other local governments Livingston did not have to lay off any employees or reduce their pay.

The main changes to the budget, said the city's Finance Director Victoria Lewis, came from three sources: sales tax, property tax and the state. Sales tax and property tax have both tanked due to the economy and the housing crisis. At the same time the state's budget problem was partially solved by taking another chunk of city taxes statewide.

Reporter Jonah Owen Lamb can be reached at (209) 385-2484 or jlamb@mercedsun-star.com.