Budget Analyst Recasts City Deficit Projections; Smaller but not Small

The city's Independent Budget Analyst released a report Thursday that corrected mathematical errors in a previous study of Mayor Jerry Sanders' five-year budget outlook.

The bottom line is that budget deficits will still be larger than the mayor's office predicted, but not quite as bad as the IBA first thought.

In the next fiscal year, the city will face a shortfall of $40 million, compared to a $31.8 million figured by Sanders' financial staff, the IBA reported. Their original analysis pegged the deficit at more than $43 million.

In subsequent years, the shortfalls forecast by the IBA will decline to $38 million, $32.2 million and $9.5 million, respectively. That compares to the mayor's estimates of $36.6 million, $28.1 million and $5.6 million.

The IBA totals in the original analysis of the mayor's outlook were off by a couple of million dollars because a computer program failed to account for certain expenses that were revised downward, said Tom Haynes of the IBA's office.

The subject comes up at a City Council meeting next Monday, so they felt they should issue the correction, Haynes said.

In the fifth year of the outlook, the mayor's office expects a surplus of $22.7 million while the IBA estimates a surplus of $14.2 million.

The discrepancy between the mayor's projections and those of the IBA mostly stem from expenses for major capital improvements.

-City News Service