City Council members have a big task ahead of them Monday night — closing a $1.1 million budget gap caused by a recent Local Government Aid (LGA) freeze.

Discussion at a work session will revolve around whether to cut services, enhance revenue or a combination of both.

In a memo to Mayor Tom Stiehm and City Council members from Finance Director Tom Dankert, Dankert lays out two options to balance the budget. Council members can either review the budgets city department heads have been drafting and arrive at $1.1 million of cuts or revenue enhancements, or they can cut and reduce services identified during the 2011 Truth in Taxation discussion.

When the state government shutdown ended, state legislators voted to freeze LGA at 2010 levels, meaning Austin will miss out on more than $687,000 of its certified LGA amount for 2011.

The LGA freeze coupled with the elimination of market value credit will create a loss of more than $1.3 million for Austin over the next two years.

“1.3 million dollars — that won’t be easy for the city of Austin to deal with,” Dankert previously said. “We are in the realms where we’ve never been before.”

Some cuts previously proposed include $250,000 for an animal control shelter, $425,000 for a portion of the Law Enforcement Center remodel and $75,000 that has been set aside for the replacement of a professional librarian. These proposed cuts will likely be included in Monday evening’s discussion.City Council meeting

When: 5:30 p.m., Monday; work session to follow immediately after regular meeting
Where: City Hall, Council Chambers