An urban forester and a code enforcement officer will be among the four new positions added to Encinitas city staff in the new fiscal year, which begins July 1.<\/p>\n
The City Council last week unanimously approved a proposed budget that includes the four new positions, as well as all the other expenses proposed for the coming year.<\/p>\n
\u201c(It\u2019s) a very well-planned-out, and very good budget,\u201d City Manager Jennifer Campbell said at the end of the council\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n
Other than the addition of $33,000 for \u201cenhanced economic development services,\u201d the spending plan looks pretty much as it did when it was introduced on May 20, she said during debate on the item.<\/p>\n
Revenue in the city\u2019s General Fund budget \u2014 the spending plan that covers most day-to-day city expenses, including salaries \u2014 is forecast to be $121.7 million during the next fiscal year. That\u2019s an increase of 3.4% over the $117.7 million that\u2019s now anticipated for the current fiscal year.<\/p>\n
Expenses are forecast to total $113.1 million in the new fiscal year, a 6.6% increase over the $106.1 million figure that\u2019s anticipated in the current fiscal year.<\/p>\n
The spending plan also contains what\u2019s referred to as a stabilization reserve, or money set aside for unexpected expenses. It will be \u201cfully funded at 2 percent of revenue,\u201d or $2.4 million in the coming fiscal year, a city staff report states. The city also has a fully funded, contingency reserve that will contain $22.6 million in the new fiscal year, the report continues.<\/p>\n
City staff members said the hiring process will begin immediately for the new urban forester position, so the tree expert could be in place in a month or so. In addition to the tree person and the new code enforcement officer, the spending plan calls for adding a facilities specialist and a lifeguard sergeant. Three new city vehicles also will be purchased for the new employees.<\/p>\n
Encinitas currently has 250.75 full-time-equivalent employees, not including San Dieguito Water District personnel.<\/p>\n
Only one public speaker commented on the spending plan before the council\u2019s vote. Frequent council meeting attendee Scott Campbell said he supported the proposed budget, but thought the council should have placed it earlier on the night\u2019s agenda, so it could have been discussed before 11 p.m. He said other items on the evening\u2019s agenda, including a debate about the relocation of the Leucadia Farmers Market, were \u201cfrivolous\u201d when compared to the massive spending plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI support this budget, I support this council, but you\u2019ve got to make it easy for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Council members and city staff said the budget vote was placed toward the end of the agenda because the item had already been discussed in prior meetings. One city finance employee called the vote the final milestone in the annual budget planning cycle, which began months ago with workshop sessions. And, Councilmember Jim O\u2019Hara said the vote could be considered a simple ratification of what had previously been \u201cdeeply discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n
To view the coming year\u2019s spending plan and other budget documents, visit: https:\/\/encinitas.granicus.com\/MetaViewer.php?view_id=7&clip_id=3853&meta_id=208866<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An urban forester and a code enforcement officer will be among the four new positions added to Encinitas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,4779,4601,12564,23,100,3054,12565,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-371097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-cardiff-by-the-sea","tag-encinitas","tag-leucadia","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-north-county","tag-olivenhain","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371097","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=371097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}