The misunderstood budget "crisis"

In response to my post about the economic development funds, I was asked the following question:
"That's cool and all but is there really a budget deficit and if so how should we deal with it?"

This is my reply.

I’m glad you put that in the form of a question, because it seems lots of folks don’t understand that we are not in a revenue crisis at this moment.

The $650,000 revenue shortfall was anticipated by city management when the budgets were proposed so the department heads were given strict instructions to trim everything possible.

We knew we weren’t going to get the money, so it had to be cut from the budget.

It was hoped that the legislation proposed by Sen. Ken Schilz would pass and the city would be given about $350,000 back. As we now know, that did not happen, but more cities in the eastern half of the state are starting to see shortfalls they did not anticipate and so this is likely to be addressed next session.

Remember when the radio and newspaper said that city council would need to raise our property taxes by something like 25 percent to cover the budgets? That was if the budget was passed as originally proposed without the cuts. That’s how the budget process works. Each department puts together a proposal of what they would really like to have, and then usually settles for what they need to have, or at least what they need to have the most.
The thing to remember if that we shouldn’t have to make these cuts year after year when the taxes we pay are as high as they are.
(And if the rules aren’t changed, we will have the same situation next year.)

Just think, if the state program is changed, we could see a reduction in our taxes without any reduction in services.

That would be nice, wouldn’t it?