City's Hidden Debts 800% Larger Than Revenue

$ 332 million is a conservative estimate of Coronado's debt hidden off our balance sheet. It's excessive. It's unacceptable. 

To give you a sense of the magnitude of Coronado's outstanding off-balance-sheet debts, they are approximately 8 times greater than our anticipated tax revenue for this current Fiscal Year 2013-2014. This means that our hidden debts are 800% larger than our revenue. 

Our anticipated tax revenue for this year is approximately $ 42 million and our off-balance-sheet debts are approximately $ 332 million.  The anticipated expenses for FY 2013-2014 are approximately $ 57 million. 

Four things you need to know about Coronado's off-balance-sheet debt are:

• It's excessively high.
• It makes our city financially weak and unstable.
• It's the hallmark of a poorly-run city.
• It's unacceptable.

How bad is it? It's dreadful. We're living very far above our means.

There are at least two sources of Coronado's off-balance-sheet debt:

1. Redevelopment Debt ~ approximately $ 232 million
2. City Employee Pension Debt ~ approximately $ 100 million. 

Make no mistake. Coronado taxpayers are responsible for all of the debt incurred by our mayor and other council members, even though they hide it from you off the balance sheet during budget time. It's all public debt that must be repaid with taxpayer dollars. Period.  

Sadly, Coronado residents get the false idea that our city finances are in better shape than they are in reality because our Redevelopment Debt and Pension Debt remain hidden off the balance sheet.

As expected, city officials intentionally perpetuate this false idea of financial stability for obvious reasons. Over the course of time, the annual mantra that "our city is well run" because "we have a budget surplus" so "other cities envy us" became enshrined as one of Coronado's most destructive financial myths. 

De-bunking this deceptive financial myth is the first step on the road to regaining financial strength and stability by paying debt, ending the overspending, and stopping the waste of taxpayer dollars. There are no budget surpluses in Coronado because our off-balance-sheet debts eclipse any "surplus" that city officials try to claim every year at budget time . . .