Around the Creek: City tries to predict its economic future while residents should expect more traffic work on crowded Ygnacio Valley Road

As the city tries to get a handle on its finances in light of still shaky economic times, the council Tuesday evening will discuss a long-term financial plan that attempts to predict such things as whether vital sales and property tax revenues will grow and how much the city will have to pay out in the employee CalPERS retirement system.

Mayor Cindy Silva described the plan as a document that city staff routinely prepare to help the City Council with planning. The document should help the 15 . They were appointed earlier this year to formulate financial strategies that could be implemented to meet future operational and capital budget needs.

Walnut Creek has come up with long-term financial plans in previous years. For example, when the city adopted its 2008-10 budget, projections for 2010-12 revealed significant shortfalls because of the economic uncertainty caused by the recession that hit the city's property and sales tax revenues.  

"With the volatility of revenues and ever-increasing expenditures, our ability to anticipate future years better positions the city to make changes that keep operations stable and plan for infrastructure needs, the staff report said.

This report attempts to look ahead to 2018, but staff acknowledge "the farther out the plan goes, the less precise the results are likely to be." In 2005, "we could not have imagined the events that occurred over the last six years and any projections for 2005-1011 would have been off the mark."

Still, this plan has value to help anticipate "structural problems" and give the City Council and staff time to respond.

The plan characterizes Walnut Creek's current economic situation as "stabilizing, meaning getting better but not out of the woods yet." 

Here are some revenue projections contained in the planned, starting in the 2012-13 fiscal year: 

• Property tax revenues would increase 2 percent annually
• Sales tax revenues would increase 4 percent annually, not including revenues expected from Neiman Marcus opening in 2012. 
• Department revenues will increase 3 percent annually
• Investment earnings, transient occupancy tax and other sources will increase 1 percent. 

As for anticipated expenditures? Well, paying for employees salaries and benefits takes up the majority of the city's budget. That cost is largely guided by rate changes for the CalPERS retirement system and rising medical insurance costs. Some of these increases are not yet known. They typically are updated in October. 

One positive note: The city doesn't expect more layoffs, meaning it won't be stuck with benefit costs associated with unemployment benefits. 

Staff expect to update the data in the long-term financial plan, notably after contracts with five labor groups are final. Staff also expects to receive more information about property and sales tax revenues in the near future. It also will find out what the state is going to do and how much money it will want to take away from cities. 

At Tuesday's City Council meeting, members are likely to discuss the parameters of the plan, whether it is helpful to attempt to project out as far as six years, when the data might not be as precise, or to look at shorter-term planning strategies, said Silva. 

The City Council will discuss the plan at its regular meeting 7 p.m. Tuesday in the City Council chambers, 1666 N. Main St. 

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Get ready, Walnut Creek, for the next 10 years of road improvements, many of them taking place along the often congested thoroughfare Ygnacio Valley Road. 

This summer, the City Council is expected to vote on a 10-year capital project list that would involve spending an estimated $10 million on transportation projects. Expenditures range from building sidewalks to left-turn lane extensions along Ygnacio Valley Road to three electric car plug-in stations. The projects will start in 2012, last through 2016, and be paid for mostly by using traffic impact fees, city engineer Steve Waymire told the Contra Costa Times. 

The proposed projects include:

• Building a sidewalk along Ygnacio Valley Boulevard between Oakland Boulevard and Parkside Drive for $750,000
• Erecting speed display signs along Ygnacio Valley Road for $130,000
• Extending left-turn lanes along Ygnacio Valley Road, at San Carlos Drive, Civic Drive, Marchbanks Drive, Walnut Boulevard and Homestead Avenue for $1.85 million
•  Building three electric car plug-in stations for $30,000

Extending the left-turn lanes and other fixes on Ygnacio Valley Road, which sees about 65,000 vehicle trips per day, won't add new lanes to the six-lane thoroughfare. But traffic engineer Rafat Raie said the measures could ease traffic at peak times because the extensions will provide more room for cars turning left and allow other cars to keep going straight.

The proposed project list does not include road maintenance, which should cost about $40 million over 10 years, according to the 2010-2020 capital investment program list adopted by the council last year.