Ideally, a city council committee exists to distill an issue or problem down to its nub, then give explicit agenda directions to the full council. It doesn’t always work that way, but it’s pleasing when it does, as it did during Tuesday’s Finance & Personnel Committee meeting.

What we learned – via dialogue by councilors Barry Peters, Bill Knobloch and Chris Snow, and aided by Finance Director Elray Konkel – is that the council probably needs to trim another $2 million from its 2009 budget.

The city’s revenue has been about $600,000 less than its expenditures for each of the last three months. And, despite reducing the city’s spending by $2.3 million earlier this month, estimates going forward are likely too high when considering the downward spiral we’re experiencing.

The first part of the meeting centered on an issue – committee approval of a $1.2 million personal service contract for Heery International – whose outcome was preordained since Peters and Snow are on the record as supporters of the Winslow Way project. This followed Mayor Darlene Kordonowy saying several hundred words on the subject, including, “We can do it!” to Snow’s question about the plausibility of completing the wastewater treatment plant and Winslow Way projects while the city struggles financially.

Knobloch argued to no avail that the contract should be frozen in committee until the city “restructures government,” and the 2-1 vote served as an ironic segue into the next subject.

Peters, who chairs the committee this year, said it was the group’s mission to outline the process to allow the full council next month to “wipe out” the multimillion gap that now exists between the city’s revenue and expenditures.

Knobloch set the tone for the discussion when saying that the council needs to establish a spending baseline: “Let Elray lay it out…here’s what we can live on.”

Konkel said the city’s tax-supported revenue baseline for 2009 is likely between $16-to-$18 million, compared to the $18.5 million previously projected. And he said the city should be prepared to pare another $2 million from expenditures.

How? The committee asked Konkel to identify city services that are deemed essential by law and the amount of money the city needs to operate at a bare minimum.

And then, during a three-hour meeting that the committee wants scheduled for March 3, Konkel’s baseline analysis would be held up to the light for both committee and public discussion.

Hopefully, they said, citizens would give them counsel as to what direction the council should take.

In other words, the painful choices of what goes and what stays. Meanwhile, the funding contracts for community organizations remain unfulfilled.

The community also is expected to let its feelings be known about all the above, and more, when it votes May 19 on a change-of-government initiative.

Hold on tight…2009 promises to be a wild ride.