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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, December 2, 2019 Page 5 cost cuts pretty quickly. He thought it was better, personally, to have a holistic conversation about the whole function, come back and discuss that, take the or- ganizational needs and community needs as well as the financial structure, and put that in place. Councilmember Etten asked Mayor Roe if he had specific items within the budget that he thought could be cut. Mayor Roe thought the City Manager had outlined that there are not a lot of plac- es to necessarily cut other than personnel. He certainly did not want to change the frequency or quality of the newsletter. There may be some costs associated with the website that can be looked at, but he was not sure. He thought it probably does come down to personnel. Mayor Roe stated one of his bigger concerns with bringing this forward is that at the end of 2020, the city basically has $90,000 in the fund. That does not give them a lot of flexibility going forward and certainly does not give the city a lot of ability to respond to issues that might come up re- lated to financing the communications function. Basically, at the end of 2021, there will not be a fund balance at all if something is not changed going forward, which is also concerning. This is why he wanted to discuss how the Council and staff wanted to approach that issue. He did not want to leave them in a lurch ei- ther. Mayor Roe recognized that simply eliminating the deficit spending in one action may or may not be the best idea going forward but perhaps it is appropriate to take some kind of step. He picked splitting the difference but was not sure if there was something else the Council might be interested in. Councilmember Laliberte explained she was glad the Council was having this conversation because she has been uncomfortable with the proposal and deficit spending and where that would lead the city in a short time. She agreed that it is a little late in the year to be discussing the solution of no deficit spending at all. She appreciated the suggestion to spread it out over the two years and indicated she would be very protective of the newsletter with the fact that there is not a community newspaper anymore. She thought the Council should take some step because she did not feel like it was the first time it was talked about or addressed. She would be more supportive of the two-year approach knowing that the Council would need to have more conversations on this before another six months go by. Councilmember Groff indicated his concern is that this is being brought up on December 2nd. Having been on the Council only one year, he would feel much more comfortable if it was brought up earlier in the year. He thought it was a lit- tle unfair to do this to the administration at this point. If something were to be done, he would want it spread out over a three-year period to reduce it further than the two-year period. He would be hesitant to do that and thought this could be discussed in January, according to the City Manager, and could include a more thoughtful process.