Menlo Park's Future

An Impending Problem

Fellow Menlo Park Resident,

Let the discussion begin.

The issue of making our city fiscally sustainable needs to be seriously addressed as the City embarks upon the new 2008-09 budget cycle.

What alarms us is the speed and magnitude of our city’s rising employee costs. For example, between 2001 and 2006 the number of Menlo Park employees dropped by 13% (from 260 to 230), but personnel costs for that same time span increased by about 27% (from $16.9million to $21.5 million).

We fear that if Menlo Park continues to increase the salaries and life-long defined benefits of existing employees, and continues to add new employees, our city could fall off a fiscal cliff, just as our state is doing now.

We focus on the employee cost issue because, not because we think our employees are doing bad job , but because about 72% of the city’s budget (and 80% of the City’s actual expenditures if you include special funds ) are employee related.

In upcoming emails we will define the problem, and with your input, explore our options.
 
And, by the way, we are NOT running for City Council, but we have gained insights which we’d like to share.

We look forward to hearing from at [email protected]


Mickie Winkler and Lee Duboc
Former Councilmembers