Reducing Spending

One of my main campaign issues involves reducing our debt and our spending, so I would like to propose some of the ways that I would do this:

1. We should get City employees on the same health insurance plan as the County.  This would save us in the neighborhood of $1.5 to $2.0 million per YEAR.  Not bad!  This is a no-brainer and should not be viewed as overly innovative--The real question is, why hasn't this been done much earlier?  I asked about this during the last budget process (along with several other Aldermen) and a report is due back to the Council by March 1.  Late, but better than nothing.  This needs to be done.
2. We need to take a very careful look at our 5 year capital plan.  In theory, the 5 year capital plan is a document that projects our capital costs into the future.  For example, if we think that we need to resurface a street in 5 years, we put it into the plan.  The next year, that same project moves up into the 4 year horizon.  And so forth until the project gets into the 0 year horizon, at which time it is put into the budget.  This is a logical and useful process, to be sure.  But I have found that there is an inconsistent lack of methodology and discipline that is used to determine which projects are put into the 5 year plan, and how the plan is used.  On one hand, I am told that the capital plan is just a "guideline" or "wish list" and that we should put any projects we can think of in there because they are whittled out later.  For example, during this past year I have seen costly projects put into the capital plan due to a single citizen complaint, without a care as to whether the complaint was valid!  Differently, during this year's budget discussion, I was told that all of these projects needed to be funded because they were imperative.  This doubletalk is driving up spending something fierce.  The capital plan needs to be one or the other.  If it is just a whimsical "wish list" then we can and should take it apart come budget time.  If is a serious budget document, then we need to use more care when we put projects on the list.  Even when we take care in putting the list together, things can change over 5 years and the list needs to be scrutized each year, especially when it comes to budgeting for the items in question.  Perhaps a system prioritizing projects (1=urgent, 3=can probably wait, 5=whimsical wish list) would be helpful here. 
3. Somewhat related to point #2, we need to revisit some of our public works policies.  One thing that I have noticed is an overzealous (though well-intentioned) effort to put sidewalks all over the city, in areas that normally wouldn't need a sidewalk, and often in response to a single resident complaint.  Some examples include sidewalks through industrial areas and sidewalks to remote parts to the city that don't link up with each other.  You don't have to be an engineer to recognize the lack of logic here.  Sidewalks aren't necessarily a huge ticket item, but $50,000 here and there starts to add up.  And that is just one example.  I have also seen areas in our capital projects where we could and should put off replacing roads another year or two.  I want to be clear that I am not advocating a wholesale policy of deferred maintenance, which I do not believe works in the long run.  But again--all projects are not created equal.  We need to prioritize. 
4. We may have to reduce personnel.  Nobody likes to talk about this, but personnel costs comprise a large percentage of our overall budget (in the neighborhood of 53%, by my estimation), so it would be crazy to leave them out of the cost-cutting discussion.  Again, this would need to be done on a case-by-case basis.  Would I go in and reduce personnel across the board?  No.  Would I look at our needs and reduce personnel if it made sense?  Yes.  Would I contract out services?  If it saves money and we can produce the same level of service, I would explore contracting.  But--I also think that we should bring some services that we currently contract in-house if it can reduce our costs.  For example, we are currently contracting out the design of our stormwater ponds to outside engineering firms.  I have suggested bringing that task in-house because I believe it could be done more cheaply by our existing engineering staff.  So there's not one catch-all strategy but rather a combination. 
5. We may have to cut some services.  Nobody likes to talk about this either, but it is obviously another way of cutting costs.  Again, if we do cut services, the first ones to be cut would be things that are not highly utilized and/or that can be provided by the private sector.  For example, we have a rather extensive leaf collection program during the autumn that appears that it could be more efficient.  Instead of having city vehicles go up and down streets for weeks on end looking for leaves that have piled up, maybe we can create a system that would cut down on the needed hours and vehicle miles.  But--Residents that miss their pick up time would then have to find another way to get rid of leaves.  That's the tradeoff that I talk about.