Things got heated at last night’s San Luis Obispo City Council meeting when staff provided a five-year fiscal forecast for the city’s general fund. As part of the presentation, they presented interesting data on the city’s total revenues and expenditures over a 15-year period, which showed that general fund expenditures —used to provide basic city services and capital projects — grew steadily from nearly $20 million in 1996 to over $46 million in 2010.

While revenues and expenditures were tracked closely in the earlier years, a more significant budget gap has developed over the last four years, with expenditures exceeding revenues in 2010 by almost $4 million — and the gap appears to be getting wider.

City Manager Katie Lichtig’s Financial Stability Task Force has been meeting twice monthly since summer  to come up with ideas to fix this structural problem.