Fresno City Council votes down Mayor Autry's plan for budget surplus

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By Preston Phillips

Story Published: Oct 7, 2008 at 11:49 PM EST

Story Updated: Oct 7, 2008 at 11:49 PM EST

Mayor Alan Autry's proposal on how to spend the City of Fresno's unanticipated 4.5 million dollar budget surplus was voted down by the council today.

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The proposal needed 5 "yes" votes to move forward, but today it only received 4.

Three of the seven council members felt this budget surplus should be socked away into the city's reserves, in case of emergency, but 4 agreed with the mayor and felt the city's current reserve of 17.5 million was strength enough to allow for this extra spending.

On Friday, Mayor Alan Autry publicly announced that the City of Fresno had an unanticipated budget surplus of 4.5 million dollars, carried over from the 08' budget to the 09' budget.

On Friday, the mayor also gave his recommendations as to how this surplus should be divvied up, but today, when his recommendations where brought before the city council, they did not receive the 5 "yes" votes needed to pass, as council members were nearly split on where they stood.

Fresno City Manager Andy Souza says he and the Autry Administration will go back and look at the next best plan of action.

He says, best of all, the city still has an extra 4.5 million dollars in addition to its 17.5 million dollar reserve already in place.

These funds were primarily proposed to address neighborhood infrastructure projects and focus heavily on current and future police recruitment and retention programs.

For Preston Phillips’ full story, click on the video link above.

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