The Wayzata City Council met Tuesday for a Budget Workshop to deal with the Budget Shortfall. According to Mayor Ken Willcox, the,”shortfall is on the order of $300,000. The problem has been caused by the postponement of substantially all significant development activity in Wayzata since the beginning of the year.“
Willcox expanded on the budget shortfall by indicating, “Development projects typically generate fees that constitute an important share of the City’s revenues. To plug that gap will require that we examine opportunities for reductions across the spectrum of our services, resources and capital investments.“
Mayor Willcox also indicated that the Council has not made any specific decisions on action that will be taken to plug the gap, “…but services such as floral displays, communication publications and TV broadcasts are all on the table. We will also be freezing spending on previously authorized ‘nice to have’ projects. Road work will continue although we will temporarily reduce some of our CIP investments. We will also pursue opportunities to share services with neighboring communities.“
Willcox indicated the stunted development climate creates a significat challenge for the City: “This is a difficult time for Wayzata, the Council and city employees. We will need to act promptly to enact reductions, but we are also pursuing enhanced revenue opportunities as well. Some of those involve selling municipal services such as engineering, etc.“
Stay tuned to Wayzata.com for all the latest Wayzata Budget issues.
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