Fun Facts about Orinda's Budget

I summarize a few things about Orinda's city budget, so you don't have to read the documents

Fellow Orindans,

Thank you for subscribing once again! I’m really enjoying spending my time learning more about our city and how it works. One thing I’ve spent a little time on since I decided to run for council is the operating budget of Orinda.

My source material is here.

But here are a few bullets for you to digest this weekend so you have a high level summary as to what the size of our budgets are, and where money goes:

•The Estimated Revenue for FY 2021-2022 is $26.8 million, which exceeds the budget by $2.2 million for the fiscal year primarily as a result of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant of $2.4 million.

• The Revised Revenue for FY 2022-2023 is now projected to be $29.4 million, which is $3.1 million greater than the original budgeted amount. This positive variance is again primarily the result to the second round of ARPA funding anticipated to be received early next fiscal year.

• These totals exclude revenues accounted for in the General Obligation (GO) Debt Service Funds and in the Internal Service Funds.

• The General Purpose General Fund accounts for 55% of total revenues with 74%-76% coming from taxes including property taxes (60%), general purpose sales tax (7%), and franchise taxes (8%).

One thing that stands out to me - a fact that I learned on the campaign trail - is that Orinda generates the lowest sales tax revenue per resident in Contra Costa County. This is primary because the amount of useful retail we have in downtown is limited - so our tax dollars often go to Lafayette and Walnut Creek. It could also mean that we aren’t doing enough to help our existing retailers and small business owners generate more traffic to their businesses.

I don’t think we need a massive overhaul of downtown to increase sales tax revenue - just a few new useful retailers that residents can frequent. We should have a bit of the old and a bit of the new. I love many of our existing retailers, and they can certainly co-exist with new ones.

I hope this gives you a sense of the size and scale of our city budget, and where money comes from - I’ll be doing more deep dives each week. If you like the newsletter - please do share with other residents - and of course I’d appreciate feedback!

Sunil