This chart shows a comparison of the major sources of revenues that make up the General Fund budget from FY1999 to the current year (FY2009). You can see that Taxes (local Property Taxes - both Real Estate and Personal Property, Motor Vehicle Excise and Hotel/Motel taxes) make up the largest funding source. State Aid includes Local Aid, Chapter 70 (school aid) and Lottery revenue. Charges for Services are the fees the city charges, such as rental of city property, motor vehicle excise surcharges, fees for certified copies of documents from the City Clerk, etc. Interfund transfers include transfers of revenues from sources such as the Water and Solid Waste Enterprise Funds to the General Fund to support services and fringe benefits of employees in these areas. Licenses and permits are self-explanatory. Fines and Forfeits include parking and motor vehicle violations. Federal Aid includes the Medicaid reimbursement to the schools. Miscellaneous revenues include investment interest, police auctions and 5-College reimbursement for PVTA.

This chart is another way to look at the same information, with some of the local revenue sources called out. As you can see, the revenues that come in from user fees, like permits, licenses, fees and fines make up a very small portion of the total budget. While it is important to continually reassess whether those fines and fees are at appropriate levels, it would be impossible to make up a multi-million dollar budget gap simply by increasing fees and fines.

The graph above shows very clearly that the City has not yet returned to the level of state funding we received in FY2002, even though our fixed costs have continued to rise.

The graph below shows the same data, only in this graph highlighting the trend of state aid as a share of our budget over the last decade. You can see that the trend is that State Aid has not kept pace with the growth of our city budget (note the blue linear trend line).

Once again, in the chart above you can see that the aid we receive for education is still well below the level we were receiving in FY2002.

In the chart below, you can see that the Chapter 70 School Aid we receive is a smaller and smaller portion of our total education budget.