The City of Eugene Budget Committee has come up with six options to cope with a 3 million dollar shortfall anticipated in fiscal year 2015. They're hoping people will join the discussion at a series of public meetings in January.
Laura Illig is Chair of the City of Eugene budget committee. She says they considered a range of options for dealing with the shortfall and were able to narrow down the scenarios to 6.
Illig: "What they're meant to do is really provide the public with a starting point for discussion around, what are the tradeoffs that we as a community are willing to make? None of these are things that the budget committee is recommending right now. They're more different scenarios that we're hoping the public will comment on and provide feedback on."
The budget committee's suggestions include fewer cuts to public safety, some provide more money for human services, some use reserve funds, others don't. Eugene is currently tapping into reserves to pay for public safety, parks, libraries and other services. The city will have public meetings on the budget on January 21st and 29th.
