Sonora City Budget Nearly Balanced

The Sonora City Council was crunching numbers Monday afternoon.

The budget session looked at numbers from all the city departments, and thanks to voluntary cuts made by nearly every city department, the numbers are in near-balance.

That means the City of Sonora should be able to avoid drastic actions such as forced furlough days, like Tuolumne County employees faced recently.

Lieutenant Patrick Tonegato reported that the Sonora Police Department is managing with the fleet of vehicles and computers they currently have.

“We do the best we can. We´ve made some wise purchases in the past with software and computers. We´re still running the best, fastest software we can afford. The guys are keeping up to date on that, and that saves a lot of their time,” said Tonegato.

Tonegato also said their best bet on the subject of getting a new facility, is Congressman Radanovich and Senator Feinstein.

Community Development Director Ed Wyllie told the City Council yesterday at their budget study session that, while they were able to make the cuts this year without too much trouble, “I don´t recommend it [for] two years. If we don´t do a certain amount of capital equipment purchases, then you start to get into concerns about the safety of the equipment, et cetera.”

Wyllie reported that there are a few voids left from the cuts that the Public Works department has had to make, “And where they have to fill that void, that means there´s something else that´s not getting done. We´re still going to be out there painting, we´ll still be out potholing, so to what extent what gets deferred, it´s going to remain to be seen over the next year,” said Wyllie.

The final budget for the upcoming fiscal year will appear on the agenda June the 21st.