Poway begins pondering how to spend a $22M surplus
Poway leaders find themselves in the enviable position of trying to decide how best to spend a big basket of surplus budget money.
During a special meeting set for 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28, members of the City Council will begin discussing how they might want to spend an estimated $22 million in surplus budget reserve funds. Members of the public are invited to attend the meeting and offer their suggestions as well.
“I look at it as kind of a family meeting,” Mayor Steve Vaus said Tuesday. “Somebody might say that we won the lottery, now what do we do with the money?”
Last summer the council decided that the general fund reserves should equal about 45 percent of annual operating expenditures. To do that will require keeping about $18 million in the fund. The decision followed a review of a study prepared by the Government Finance Officers Association that concluded Poway should have between $12.5 million and $19.4 million in reserves, depending on the council’s risk comfort level.
At the time of the 45-percent decision, the city general fund reserves stood at $33 million, or about 82 percent of annual operating costs. It had been built up over the city’s 35-year history.
The decision of how best to spend the money was deferred.
City Manager Dan Singer said Tuesday last summer’s estimate that the city council could free up about $17 million and still meet the 45 percent requirement has grown to $22 million due to several factors, most notably the addition to the fund of fiscal year 2014-15 surplus money.
He said the Jan. 28 meeting will be the first of two on the topic.
Singer and his staff are preparing a list of 15 suggested uses for the money. Councilmembers will be asked to review those, add their own suggestions and seek comments from members of the public attending the meeting. By the end of the night, Singer said, it is hoped that the council will have some sort of rankings for the suggestions.
Part two of the process will come about six weeks later, Singer said, after staff reviews the rankings and prepares a proposed spending plan which will be given to the council for action. It might be possible to secure outside funding, such as grants, to help finance some of the suggestions, Singer said.
The city’s list was still being worked on this week, but Singer highlighted some of the likely suggestions:
• Applying some of the money as a down payment toward construction of the new Mickey Cafagna Community Center in Community Park. The new building is projected to cost about $20 million.
• Continue the undergrounding of utility lines along Espola Road.
• Make improvements to the Swim Center, including construction of a “splash zone” near the wading pool.
• Invest in solar energy for City Hall and the Poway Center for the Performing Arts.
• Buy back the 5-acre auto storage lot in the Poway Business Park that is used by Poway Road auto dealers. The city owns the lot but must put it on the open market under terms of the 2012 dissolution by the state of the redevelopment agency.
• Use some of the money to pay down on one of the city’s underfunded retirement accounts. Singer said the projected shortfall in the Public Agency Retirement Systems (PARS) fund is $8 million. For every $1 million put into the fund by the city it will save $100,000 a year in payments, Singer said. Several years ago the city paid down another retirement fund shortfall, earning praise from the San Diego Taxpayers Association for dong so.
Vaus said he’s sure his fellow councilmembers, and members of the public, will have their own suggestions. For example, Vaus said he’d like to investigate the costs associated with bringing the recycled water lines down from the business park for connection to Community Park and perhaps homes in the area.
