Woodside budget calls for expanding staff Woodside budget calls for expanding staff (June 22, 2005)

** Adding assistant town manager is one of the proposals.

By Andrea Gemmet

Almanac Staff Writer

Woodside's town staff can no longer keep up with its expanding workload, and the town needs to find room in its budget to hire additional staff, according Town Manager Susan George.

Not only has the workload expanded beyond the current staff's capacity, but several senior staff members are approaching retirement age, and it's time to start thinking about succession plans, Ms. George told the Woodside Town Council at its June 14 meeting.

In her proposal for a two-year town budget, Ms. George recommended creating two new positions -- a development services engineer for the fiscal year beginning July 1, and an assistant town manager starting in the 2006-07 fiscal year.

She also proposed hiring a full-time administrative technician for the Planning and Building Department for one year to work on special projects and tackle the department's administrative backlog.

The proposed budget for the 2005-06 fiscal year is $6.17 million, a 0.3 percent increase over the current year's budget. For the 2006-07 fiscal year, the budget is proposed to decrease by 6.9 percent to $5.74 million.

Financially, the town is in good shape despite a huge increase in legal costs in the past year, Ms. George said. The town spent over $300,000 on litigation and code enforcement between July 1, 2004, and May 31, 2005, more than three times what the town normally budgets for legal costs. Higher than normal legal costs are expected to continue next year, but should normalize in 2006-07, said Ms. George.

The town's revenues are on an upswing, particularly property tax revenue, which is expected to increase by 9.1 percent in the coming fiscal year. Woodside's share of property taxes account for slightly more than 23 percent of the town's total revenues, Ms. George said.

Woodside is facing some potentially significant budgetary uncertainties in the coming two years, however.

The cost of maintaining the town's first park, Barkley Fields and Park, won't be fully known until it is completed, sometime next spring or summer, she said.

Also, Woodside's three-year contract for law-enforcement services with the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office expires June 30, 2006. How much costs will increase is anyone's guess, Ms. George said. When the last three-year contract expired, the cost went up by 26 percent, she said.
INFORMATION

The Woodside Town Council is expected to vote to formally approve the proposed two-year budget at the June 28 meeting. For information, call Town Hall at 851-6790.

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