Proposal for new police and fire stations, sports park nears approval by City Council.

By Tim Sheehan / The Fresno Bee

Staffing for two new police precinct stations, a new fire station, more police officers and firefighters and completion of a new sports park are among the highlights of a new two-year spending plan nearing approval by the Visalia City Council.

The city is required to adopt a budget before the start of the 2006-07 fiscal year that begins July 1. In recent years, Visalia leaders have adopted a two-year budget cycle, making midstream adjustments as needed.

Visalia’s general fund -- the pot of money from which most of the city’s day-to-day bills are paid -- amounts to nearly $113 million over the next two years. But in recent weeks, the City Council has been studying proposed spending on construction or major purchases for such special programs as the Visalia Municipal Airport, sewage treatment, transit, trash hauling, parks, storm drains and roads.

Together, the general fund, capital spending and other special funds total more than $296 million between July 1, 2006, and June 30, 2008.

The City Council is expected to hold a public hearing Monday on the overall budget. Approval of the spending plan will likely happen June 26.

For council members, sifting through pages of financial information is a daunting but necessary chore.

Mayor Jesus Gamboa is no stranger to money matters. In addition to his nearly nine years on the City Council, he’s also the chief financial officer for Proteus Inc., a job-training and service agency.

“You’ve just got to wade through it all,” Gamboa said last week. “It takes a lot of time. ... The more difficult and technical the issue is, the more time it takes to study it.”

Council Member Bob Link, a six-year council veteran, agreed.

“After you’ve done it once or twice, I wouldn’t say it’s any easier, but I had a better concept of what I’m doing with the budget,” he said.

Link and Gamboa said they rely on City Manager Steve Salomon, Administrative Services Director Eric Frost and other staff to provide the council with information they need to make sound budget decisions.

“There’s an element of trust that you have to have with your staff,” Gamboa said. “I ask more global questions; I leave the details to the professionals and stick more to the policy issues.”

Link said watching the staff working on the budget has given him the confidence that the budget presented to the council “is fiscally responsible.”

“That’s my assumption when I start on Page 1,” Link said.

Council members also look to see that the things they think are important are getting the appropriate attention, even while knowing it takes three votes to get things done.

“There are going to be things that I think are more important than the staff or other council members do,” Link said.

While each council member approaches the task with different ideas, one theme is clear: Public safety is at the top of the priority list.

Together, the police and fire departments represent $65.6 million -- or nearly 60% -- of the entire general fund budget. It’s nearly $5 million more than was allocated in the prior two-year cycle.

That doesn’t even count Measure T, a quarter-cent sales tax in the city that provides money for extra police officers and firefighters and for improvements to public-safety facilities.

Over the next two years, Measure T is expected to bring more than $5.8 million to the Police Department and more than $3.8 million to the Fire Department.

“Measure T is a significant part of this plan,” said Frost, the city’s budget director. By the end of the two-year cycle, Frost said, the city hopes to have hired 20 of the 28 extra police officers promised to voters in 2004 and to have opened two new police precinct stations and a new northwest fire station and training center.

“Sure, safety is a big part of the budget,” Gamboa said. “We have to make sure our citizens are safe.

“But there’s a balance there,” he added. “I don’t mind it growing as long as our overall revenues grow. ... As a percentage of the overall budget, it’s about where I think it should be.”

“Police and fire are priorities I think the community has set,” Link said. “That was pretty well pointed out with Measure T, when the voters stepped up and said public safety was important to them.”

Frost said the budget also reflects other priorities identified by the City Council in policy decisions and discussions over the past year or so.

“The budget focuses on doing a number of things: increasing public safety, initiating a number of significant capital projects and adding resources to street efforts; and helping nonprofits serve Visalia,” Frost said, adding that the second year of the budget includes an extra $50,000 to be distributed to nonprofit agencies.

This year, the city provided about $105,000 that was divided among six nonprofits, all related to community activities for children and teens.

Among the other priorities has been the new Visalia Riverway Sports Park, under construction in north Visalia. The budget calls for completing the first phase of the park, including some lighted soccer fields, and for beginning efforts on the next phase that includes four softball diamonds.

“I would like to have seen us playing on fields this summer,” Link said. “Those should be ready this year. ... But the fact that we had reserves this year, we were able to put more money into the sports park.”

Frost praised the City Council for its prudence with reserves, enabling Visalia to weather recent financial raids of property and sales taxes by the state and still accomplish projects like the sports park.

“The council has got us in a place where a number of good things can happen, and we think there’s an opportunity here to implement a number of the council’s priorities,” Frost said. “We’ve developed a document that deals with the big picture, that keeps us financially sound.”

Link said that after a meeting last week between officials of Valley cities and Assembly Member Juan Arambula, D-Fresno, he believes the state “is easing up on cities.”

“The state isn’t balancing its budget on the backs of cities and counties as much as in the past, and they’re talking about returning some of the money they’ve taken,” Link said. “Whether that ends up becoming reality, we don’t know yet.”

But even the possibility of relief is good news.

“We can control our expenses,” Link said, “but we cannot control our income.”

The reporter can be reached at tsheehan@fresnobee.com or (559) 622-2410.