Encinitas is in the happy situation of having a fully funded proposed budget with two reserve funds, plus a hefty amount of currently unallocated money in the coming fiscal year, city officials report.<\/p>\n
The city estimates that its general fund budget \u2014 the spending plan that covers most day-to-day expenditures \u2014 will have $126 million in revenue in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. About 60 percent of the revenue comes from property tax money.<\/p>\n
Expenditures are proposed to total $124.6 million, with 50 percent of that going for in-house personnel expenses and 18 percent going for the city\u2019s law enforcement contract with the county Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
When unspent money from the current year\u2019s budget is added into the calculations, the financial picture looks even brighter, City Treasurer and Finance Director Tom Gallup said during a budget workshop Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Gallup\u2019s presentation indicated that there was a total of $8.6 million in extra cash once the leftover money from the current fiscal year was included. And, he added, that figure doesn\u2019t include a potential $2.6 million the city is expecting to receive soon from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for reimbursement for a sinkhole repair project several years ago.<\/p>\n
During the budget workshop, City Council members agreed to include new funding for nearly two dozen projects, including $2 million for overhauling the eastern portion of Santa Fe Drive and $300,000 for design work on at-grade, railroad crossing points in Leucadia. After those decisions, council members ended the day with a forecasted $784,000 in \u201cunreserved\u201d money, which they said they\u2019ll hold off on making spending decisions for right now.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Luke Shaffer said he\u2019d like the city to spend up to $200,000 for a coastal camera system contract with Surfline Inc. Two company representatives told the council during the meeting that they were proposing to install 20 to 25 cameras along the coast and the new system could collect data on sand width, beach occupancy rates and cliff issues. Shaffer said that information could be very helpful for monitoring the effectiveness of sand replenishment projects.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Joy Lyndes proposed spending $63,000 to add gravel and wheel stops to a popular sunset viewing parking spot along Cornish Drive near Santa Fe Drive. There\u2019s a big gap between the pavement and the dirt parking spot that\u2019s difficult to navigate, she said, adding that wheel stops would keep vehicles from rolling down onto the Self-Realization Fellowship property. The city is planning to repave the roadway in the coming year, so doing this project in conjunction with the repaving would be a \u201cwonderful opportunity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Councilmembers Shaffer and Marco San Antonio initially supported it for the immediate funding list, but San Antonio later pulled his support, saying he wanted to hold off for now. Mayor Bruce Ehlers said he could support it once the federal sinkhole reimbursement money arrives.<\/p>\n
\u201cMine\u2019s not a no, it\u2019s a wait until we get that reimbursement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Hara said it definitely wasn\u2019t a priority for him, saying he thought the money could be better spent on more school crossing guards or red-painted curbs near school areas. The sunset viewing area ought to remain a rustic Encinitas experience, he said.<\/p>\n
Audience members at Wednesday\u2019s workshop had their own list of suggested spending expenditures. One woman asked for more pickleball courts, while another wanted roadway improvements near the Clark Avenue apartments project, and a third sought \u201ctwinkly lights\u201d around a stop sign on Plato Drive. And, some audience members split over whether the city should pursue its current plans for at-grade railroad crossings in Leucadia. People who\u2019ve been seeking the crossings for years said the time had finally come to get the job done, while opponents said they were concerned about how much new train horn noise would result from adding the crossings.<\/p>\n
The final draft city spending plan for the next fiscal year is scheduled to be introduced to the council on May 20 and the council plans to vote to adopt the document on June 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Encinitas is in the happy situation of having a fully funded proposed budget with two reserve funds, plus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,4779,4601,4602,4603,12564,23,100,3054,12565,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-267170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-cardiff-by-the-sea","10":"tag-encinitas","11":"tag-encinitas-advocate","12":"tag-encinitas-advocate-news","13":"tag-leucadia","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-north-county","17":"tag-olivenhain","18":"tag-san-diego","19":"tag-san-diego-county","20":"tag-san-diego-headlines","21":"tag-san-diego-news","22":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}