Budgeting in a Time of Coronavirus

How do you calculate a city budget in light of the Safer at Home rules?

Well, you can start with, It's not good, or, as a city staff report (https://is.gd/MXA14U) puts it, "it has unfortunately had a negative economic impact on our residents, businesses, and, ultimately, the City of Monrovia."

And, due to these "unprecedented times, there is no previous financial model to use as a guide to project the exact impact on the City's revenues."

So there's a bit of guesswork involved, and city staff guesstimates that if you do not include Measure K sales tax revenue, the city will end the 2019-2020 fiscal year with a deficit of approximately $556,000. If you add Measure K revenue in, it becomes a surplus of $244,000.

A few interesting guesstimates:

~ Regular sales tax will be down by $1.4 million.

~ But the city will get more money from Amazon and other online retailers.

~ Measure K revenue will be $800,000 instead of the expected $1,150,000.

~  Auto dealerships are now open, which will help with sales tax. Monrovia gets about 35% of its sales tax from them.

~ Hotel bed taxes (Transient Occupancy Tax) will fall $575,777 short of the expected $2,253,257.

If you're a financial geek, more here: https://is.gd/MXA14U

- Brad Haugaard