Sales tax dip not worrying LaGarce - yet

If Jeff LaGarce were a football coach, rather than city manager of the city of Hannibal, he would likely point out that falling behind early in the game is not nearly as serious as trailing with time running out in the fourth quarter. Consequently, LaGarce says he is not wringing his hands over the fact that at the end of October the city’s sales tax revenue was running 2 percent behind a year ago. That translates into approximately $58,000.
“It’s not extremely alarming because you can’t use three months to extrapolate a whole year,” he said. “Now if we were down 2 percent and were in the ninth month, I’d be a lot more concerned.”
Heading into October sales tax revenue was actually up 2.5 percent over 2008.
“October was just a poor month and it made the entire year to date show a 2 percent reduction from what last year was,” said LaGarce. “When November revenue comes in, if we have a good month it could be up a point and a half total.”
While a quick turnaround is possible, LaGarce knows October’s trend could also continue.
“It’s concerning and we continue to monitor this very closely,” he said. “The economy is difficult.”
If revenues are continuing to lag behind expenses next spring, what steps would have to be taken to keep the city out of the red?
“I don’t have any intention of pursuing layoffs. We would look at holding off purchases,” said LaGarce.
To further look for ways to cut city expenses, without reducing services, LaGarce has been given permission to form a financial task force.
“We’re going to look at all facets of how we operate and what we do,” said the city manager. “We’ll be looking at equipment, supplies, ongoing costs and overhead. What do we do? Why do we do it? Is it essential? Is it needed? Is there a better way to achieve it?”
The task force will include city department heads, along with Mayor Roy Hark and Councilmen Barry Louderman and Jim Behymer.
“We’re going to make this a very inclusive process where people have a part in these decisions in different departments. These people (department heads) know what they viably can do and what they realistically are not going to be able to do,” said LaGarce. “I think if you don’t bring in the stakeholders, the people that are responsible for actually delivering the service at the customer level, you’re going to end up making a lot of decisions that are not practical from a delivery standpoint. Plus I want the departments to feel good about what they’re able to do. I don’t want them to be told what they have to do, I want them to help participate in the solutions.”