Big Ideas, Real Impact.
As a small city, we need to leverage every dollar available to better the quality of life for our residents. This requires the creativity, experience, and expertise that Thomas brings to table.
What is Fiscal Responsibility in La Verne?
Our city is generally funded by grants, tax dollars, and revenue generated from city services offered internally and externally. We are a small city, with big demands. Our aging population means more of our residents are on fixed income. Every cent taken from a resident is a cent that they could be using to improve their own quality of life. Therefore, the city owes a responsibility to each resident and taxpayer to not only maximize every cent collected, but to also pursue other funding sources so that collecting the cents from our residents and taxpayers becomes secondary in how we fund our city. As a council member, I would:
Ensure the city is pursuing every revenue-generating opportunity possible. Before we are making cuts that impact our staff and residents, I want to know the city has exhausted every opportunity and resource available to increase revenue.
Ensure we are activating resident participation in as many places as possible. This council voted to limit the number of committees and commissions the city has. I disagree with this decision. While administered by the city, these committees and their programs are run by the efforts of the residents. In a city our size, we should be looking to delegate as much as we can to the residents willing to step up to lead and execute programs that better our city.
As an expert in collaborative governance, request an audit of city services and resources to determine areas where synergies can be created based on mutual interests with local businesses and organizations. The collaboration our police is doing with regional partners to drive down calls related to homelessness is an example of this.
Ensure responsible decision-making around issues related to long-term pension and infrastructure obligations, advocate for and monitor measurable performance standards, prioritize core services before discretionary expansion, promote transparent contracts and major expenditures, assess lifecycle costs before approving projects, and provide plain-language explanations of significant votes.
I had an informative meeting with the directors of the city’s departments. Our directors report relative high morale in their departments. However, one thing that came up over and over again is many of the people serving La Verne do not actually live in La Verne. I would like to see our key employees have the option to relocate to the City of La Verne if they so desire. While our city already reflects the diligent and amazing work of our staff, I want to make sure we continue to attract top talent, while at the same time recognize that as a small city, we have a smaller pool of public funds.
As a council member, I would urge serious discussion around how we compensate our staff. I would want investigation of the following:
Explore fiscally responsible recruitment and retention incentives, including partnerships with existing housing programs, without creating unsustainable obligations for taxpayers.
Equitable Pay: It is important to me that we ensure that our staff do not carry the burden of offsetting the costs of our services. As a council member, I will ensure we are striking an appropriate balance between fiscal responsibility, revenue generation, and equitable compensation so that our city becomes a mainstay of top talent, not a training ground for people who will move on to other cities to become top talent.