Staff raises, optimism, and the Pasadena budget

Last week I did a story on the city's budget and their sales tax estimates, which were initially too optimistic. The quick summary on that is that the city is $2.4 million more in debt than they thought they were. And some council members think it could end up being worse when they get new sales tax numbers in October, though Michael Beck thinks it will be better.

One thing that got cut from the story and the city's budget process and optimism is the deferral of staff raises, which saved the city about $4.5 million in this year's budget. The only problem is that the one-year deferral was agreed to in May, whereas the city's budget process runs through June. That means that the staff has the right to their raises before the end of next year's budget process.

Beck, at last week's council meeting, acknowledged that to keep to the city's proposed 2009-2010 budget, the staff would have to agree to defer those raises again. Meaning, basically, the city's already dire-looking $12 million projected deficit would be higher if the city wasn't making the assumption that it can get staff to defer those raises again.

My guess is that the city is going to try to get them to defer the raises for at least one more year, rather than just two extra months, based on the expectation of city staff that the city will run a deficit in 2010-2011 again.