Councilmember Fish considers framing of budget discussions

With a fresh council comes a fresh start and a potential new approach to the budget season.

Separate from the discussions around work plans presented by city departments starting Monday, Councilmember Bubba Fish posed questions about the direction of the conversation around the budget given its structural deficit.

Fish hoped to consider addressing budget issues in these discussions and sought to understand if evaluating the potential for savings was the goal of this budget process.

"Is the goal of this budget process to at least in part address the city's structural deficit in any meaningful way?" Fish asked at Monday's meeting. "If we are just coming here to say 'we are doing all these things, and all of them are great,' that's not looking at the city's budget critically,"

Fish hoped that departments could find programs that may be considered excessive. He referenced the daycare service offered to residents during council meetings that was recently recommended to be discontinued and hoped that City Manager John Nachbar or the heads of individual departments could present programs or other expenditures that could be cut.

"That's an opportunity where we tried something, and staff recommended we retire it," Fish said of the daycare service. "That is the approach I hope that we can take here."

However, Nachbar told Fish that he was not planning to present any potential cuts, in part because the council needed to make the decision to cut services. He explained that generating revenues through outlets like a quarter-cent sales tax increase would be the ideal manner to address this budget deficit.

"It is my fervent hope that we don't have to rely on cuts in city services in order to solve this budget problem," Nachbar said. "I would hate to engage in a cost-cutting process that causes a reduction in services or morale."

Fish argued that departments should analyze their expenditures more critically. He pointed out the more than 70% increase that the Culver City Police Department budget has seen over the past decade and hoped to find opportunities to optimize each department's spending and operations.

"It's important that we evaluate every program that we run," Fish said. "We have a responsibility to be critical about everything we do across all departments."

Nachbar argued that any cuts to city expenditures would result in a reduction of services from whatever department those cuts came from. He noted that many of the city's departments have around 80% of their expenditures directly tied to staffing, so cuts would most likely involve reducing positions and services.

"If the council wants each department to show us a budget with a 10% reduction, I can go back and have everyone submit a 10% reduction in their department and what it will mean," Nachbar said.

Councilmember Albert Vera sought to investigate Nachbar's number further, asking each Department head who presented on Monday, the first day of work plan hearings, if a 10% cut would impact their ability to operate. The answers all echoed the same sentiment: that level of reductions would result in a decrease in the services provided.

But Councilmember Yasmine-Imani McMorrin explained her belief that Fish only wanted to understand the potential options available to the council in addressing the budget, and making cuts wasn't necessarily the immediate first option.

"Understanding where there might be room [for cutting back] is helpful," McMorrin said, "It doesn't mean that is going to happen, but that is a point of information that helps us understand where our departments are coming from."

No decision was made on the direction regarding reports on potential cuts to city departments, but one could be made before the end of the work plan meetings on Wednesday.