I work with a lot of cities and my impression is that a lot of them DO NOT save their excess revenues for a rainy day. There are a few exceptions. I think San Marcos and Poway run pretty tight ships. Talk with some of the San Marcos city staff and they’ll tell you that their city manager is tighter than a drum. Most other cities, however, still seem to carry the spend now attitude. This is performed at the middle manager level, but it is enabled by upper management. Basically they must spend all of the funds in their budget or they might lose it the following year. Some more business-minded cities, I think, provide incentives for staff to accomplish their annual goals under budget. Maybe there are some city personnel out there that can provide more evidence of this?
