OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA

505 Travis Street, Suite 200
Shreveport, LA 71101
(318)673-5050 / (318)673-5085(FAX)

October 1, 2008

TO: MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL AND THE PEOPLE OF SHREVEPORT

I am pleased to transmit to you a copy of the proposed 2009 budgets for City operations.

This has been a challenging year for the City, its people and its finances. We have scrambled to deal with chaos in the financial markets and are still wondering how the most recent problems will affect us. We have had to pay much higher fuel prices and wonder how we can continue to adjust our budgets accordingly. We have had to deal with worthy requests for funding that we wanted to grant, but did not have the money to afford. We have all learned about the Haynesville Shale natural gas play, but still are not sure how exactly (or if) it will affect us. All of those challenges still face us.

However, I do not want us to lose sight of the fact that we had some significant successes in 2008. We are in the midst of launching a successful curbside recycling program, with collection volumes higher than originally projected. Our rights-of-way are cleaner, although still not where we all want them to be. Our classified workers are now paid at parity, for the first time in many years.

The biggest news, though, is that violent crime is still decreasing (down 13% for the first eight months of this year), thanks to the Operation T-BONE team and the exceptional work of our Police Department, Property Standards and EMS staffs – as well as the strong support we continue to receive from neighborhood residents and their associations! Although we have a long way to go, our neighborhoods are safer than they were when we took office. The good guys haven’t won yet, but they are definitely gaining ground! I appreciate your strong support of all of these efforts.

This has been a very challenging budget to prepare. It is made more complicated by the fact that the City will know on October 8 (a week after the budget is submitted to you) whether or not we will receive mineral lease income from certain City properties. If even some of our properties are leased, we will be in a position to replenish our reserve funds and perhaps fund needed projects. If we are unsuccessful, we will need to look harder for ways to increase those reserves, without crippling vital City operations.

Even with the possibility of some “shale money” being available, it is still clear that we must reduce our budgets wherever possible, so as not to deplete the reserves again. As a part of this budget, we have identified more than twenty filled positions that will not be funded for 2009. Even though we expect to place many of these employees in vacant positions before the end of 2008, the reality is that some City workers will lose their jobs, because there is not enough revenue to pay them. Although we are adding twenty new Police officers, the City as a whole is going to have 33 fewer budgeted positions in 2009.

We are also preparing this budget in the midst of serious discussions about the appropriate level of pay for our employees, particularly our first responders. Although a majority of Council members have committed to support a proposal which will increase Police pay by $3,000, it is unknown where the money would come from or what programs Council members might want to cut to pay the estimated $2.8 million cost. Beyond that is the issue of whether only Police officers will receive a pay increase. I strongly urge you not to approve pay adjustments for Police officers or any other City employees until you can satisfactorily address those issues. Although we can never pay any of our excellent employees enough, we cannot pay them out of funds we do not have. We also should not pay them out of funds that should be used to provide other needed public services.

We are also submitting the budget while anticipating the final report of the economic development experts (all with Shreveport ties) who visited us this August. Although our budget does not yet reflect any organizational or funding changes which might result from their recommendations, it is likely that we will be discussing their report with you soon and seeking to implement its findings as a part of the 2009 budget.