Sparks City Council has voted on a $112 million budget after spending months fixing the deficit.
City Manager Dion Louthan says they managed to nearly close an $18.2 million gap, but not without making some cutbacks, including on some of their first responders.
"Public safety makes up over 70% of our budget and with that we took a very strategic approach to how we did it," he says.
13 city workers have been laid off, including five fire fighters and freezing three vacant police officer positions. Both public safety departments are facing layoffs potentially affecting 10% of staff, but that's on the lower end.
"Most of the other budget cuts were significantly more than that."
Louthan says they're looking for different methods for first responders to use that are both efficient and budget-friendly.
For example, the city is sending drones to some dispatch calls to determine how many units are actually needed.
"If you got eyes on through various camera systems, drones, et cetera - again you're able to see what's happening on the scene and dispatch the right amount of resources to them," Louthan explains.
As far as Sparks Fire, Louthan says he's unsure how the new budget will impact the department but is currently analyzing data like service calls to figure out how to adjust their methods.
"For example, a certain percentage of calls that are cancelled en route - we want to evaluate why were those cancelled en route. Did we not get the right information? Was there something we could've done on the front side to not send that asset out?"
The budget also includes an increased waste management franchise fee from 8% to 14%, representing an increase of $32.39 per year to the average household. The city council also predicts next fiscal year's budget deficit to be even higher.
Louthan says, "Since fiscal year '21 our expenses have grown 54% and our revenues have only increased 40% and - you just do the math over that time - we've just had exponential growth on the expenditure side."
You can find the full budget plan on the City of Sparks website.
