The good news is that City Council and the Campana administration plugged an additional $100,000 into the 2019 budget reserve, up from a scary $12,000 contingency.

Their goal is to get that reserve up to $500,000 in the days ahead with a variety of decisions for which they should be lauded.

The bad news is that auditors say that reserve should be $4 million.

The good news is that the city administration asked department heads to cut 5 percent from their budgets.

The bad news is that they didn’t do it.

Or – perhaps and more importantly – they couldn’t do it.

With 87 percent of the budget allocated for personnel costs, it’s likely they could not find 5 percent to cut without massive layoffs.

So the city has a budget.

And another .75-mill tax increase.

And a three-year financial plan that calls for a tax increase of 1.25 mills in 2020 and .75 mills in 2021.

That’s not very comforting for taxpayers.

City Council members and other city leaders deserve credit for taking a long view of the budget and being honest about the projected outcome. We are not here to criticize earnest effort.

That does not make the outcome any more likable.

Clearly, fundamental things need to change for the trajectory to change.

More regionalized services are a definite must.

More private contracting of certain professional needs whenever possible should be pursued even more than they already are.

And fresh advice from different voices from outside the city should be sought whenever possible.