City of Omaha Mayor’s Office

Today, the Omaha City Council voted 4-3 to pass the proposed agreement between the City of Omaha and the Omaha Police Officers’ Association (OPOA).   For a summary of the contract provisions, click here.

The agreement will now go to a vote of the OPOA membership. 

Following the vote, Mayor Suttle issued the following statement:

I thank the City Council for their support of the new police contract.  This contract takes our City another step closer to financial solvency and represents a reform in the way we approach city finances.  We must continue to work together to make difficult but responsible decisions.  Such decisions are the only way towards the lasting long term solutions that create the stable foundation essential for Omaha’s continued growth and economic development.

Resurfacing work begins today on a stretch of 105th Street that has served as an unfortunate example of the conditions of City streets. 

Mayor Suttle and Councilman Thomas Mulligan, who represents the area, discussed the improvements in an on-site press conference today. 

The following is a statement from Mayor Suttle regarding the City’s street resurfacing efforts:  

“You may recognize this stretch of 105^th Street from City Finance Director Pam Spaccarotella’s presentation during the Community Budget Forums.

This street is an example of the magnitude of work that we face in bringing all streets in our city up to an acceptable standard. 

Street maintenance is one of the most basic and vital services that our City provides.  The street improvements that you see underway today are a key example of tax dollars at work.   It is tangible evidence of what the wheel tax is designed to do.  When this resurfacing work is completed next week, it is expected that the life of these streets will be extended by another twelve years.  

The City maintains nearly 1500 major street lane miles and an additional 3000 lane miles of residential streets.  

Filling one pothole on a residential street costs about $20.   

Resurfacing one block of street in a residential neighborhood costs between 11,000 and 22,000 dollars. 

However, the cost of asphalt has doubled since 2001.  And so, the number of lane miles we are able to resurface annually has declined from 44 in 2007 to 26 in 2009. 

At that rate, the City will be back in this neighborhood to resurface these same streets in the year 2066.  That is nearly half a century longer than these streets are expected to remain in good shape. 

City streets are 20% of total City assets, so investing in our streets goes a long way towards maintaining our high quality of life.”

Mr. President and members of the City Council, the budget I present to you today is not “business as usual.” Instead, it represents a significant reform in thinking and direction for our City.

I’ve considered how past decisions have influenced the existing financial situation and have therefore made responsible choices to ensure a strong, sustainable future. This budget is both a comprehensive solution to our financial dilemma and a strategy for financial recovery.

The decisions leading to this budget are influenced by two very important factors:

• The expectations of our community, and
• The need for a long term stable financial plan for our city.

Hundreds of hours of discussion have gone into attempting to balance these two factors. This budget was formulated only after competent and careful consideration.

There is no doubt that this proposed budget is the most difficult that this City has had to face in recent memory. In preparing this budget, we felt it was absolutely essential to keep a multi-year perspective in mind. The history of relying on revenue streams that were not sustainable, compromising our pension obligations and depleting limited reserves have only postponed a necessary reform.

Implementing solutions can mean making difficult decisions. But a history of avoiding difficult decisions has left us with a legacy of problems.

I have worked successfully with my Department Directors to develop a spending plan that preserves the most basic city services, funds the pension obligation, increases reserve balances and closes a projected gap of $34 million.

The total proposed budget for 2011 is $675.8 million. This includes $313.5 million for General Fund operations and $178 million for capital improvement projects. The entire budget is available on the city’s website.

This past April, we held seven community budget forums across the city. Directors from various City departments spoke to citizens interested in where their tax dollars go. In those meetings, I heard a variety of opinions and ideas from engaged citizens, as well as their priorities for city services.

What we heard at the budget forums, as well as in countless other meetings that I have had with business and civic groups and neighborhood associations have influenced the steps we are taking now.

Omaha’s quality of life is the envy of other cities. Omaha citizens expect we will maintain our quality of life. To do that, we must work together as a community to meet the great economic challenge that faces us. The 2011 budget is premised on citizen expectations that we will maintain our quality of life. Omaha’s most pressing problem is its structural deficit - the imbalance between the cost of services the public expects from their City and the revenues that sustain these services.

The continued recession, a rapid increase in health care costs, the burden of an unfunded pension liability, the cost of maintaining a deteriorating infrastructure and the long term consequences of prior short term decisions have each taken their toll on the financial health of our City. For example, the increase in health care costs since the year 2000 have consumed the entire increase in sales tax revenue during the same time period.

For the rest of Mayor Suttle’s Budget Presentation, click on “More.” 

Review a summary of the proposed 2011 budget.

View the entire proposed budget on the Finance Department’s website.

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