I met today with the Legislative Director for the California League of Cities to learn more about the impacts of the Governor's proposed budget on local communities. Fortunately, the passage of Proposition 1A in 2004 protects some revenues that cities like Fresno rely on from the state. But since county governments have no such protection, they will bear the brunt of the budget impacts and cities will have to deal with a lot of the fallout.

In addition, we all know the mortgage crisis is also wreaking havoc on local government budgets. The next Mayor of Fresno will inherit a budget with declining revenues for the first time in a number of years. 
 
Despite the "doom and gloom" of our current fiscal climate, I remain optimistic that the City of Fresno can, in fact, still make significant advances in the coming years on economic development, public safety, air quality, transportation, and water infrastructure.
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Even though revenues will decline next year, the City of Fresno’s General Fund has actually increased by 45% since 2002. So, the city’s budget will still be significantly larger than it was just a few years ago. That’s why I think we can continue to make progress on many fronts by making City Hall more efficient, expanding volunteer programs within the police and fire departments, and accelerating the move to e-government services.  The worst thing we can do is adopt a "hunker down" mentality and blame lack of progress on budget woes.  That's simply not an option as far as I'm concerned.