As the City of Eau Claire begins to balance its budget, leaders say they're getting a taste of déjà vu.

“The deficit will be pretty much what it had been in the prior years,” says City Council Member Bob Von Haden.

“For the last five or six years, it's been a struggle to try to provide the level of service that people are accustomed to in the city, with fewer dollars,” says City Council Member Larry Balow.

City Manager Mike Huggins says right now the city has a projected budget gap of $1.5 to 1.7 million for 2011, because it doesn't know how much funding will come from the state. He says those funds have been steadily decreasing.

“The city was receiving, in 1995, $13 million in state shared revenue,” says Huggins. “What we received last year was a little over $7 million. So there's been a dramatic decline in the shared revenue that comes.”

Huggins says he doesn’t want to have to cut anything back. But without the revenue from the state, there may be more cutbacks from things like parks and recreation, and public works.

“We’ve closed recreational programs, we've closed outdoor ice rinks, we've consolidated a number of management positions,” he says.

Huggins and council members say property tax increases for next year are inevitable, if people want the same level of services, but there may be other options.

“Let's look at consolidation of services in that area, or just cutting back in the services in that area,” says Von Haden.

Some on city council say looking to the county or school district to combine services may be the best bet. But, nothing is set in stone until numbers from the state come out in November.

City council members say the city will soon put up findings from public budget listening sessions up on its Web site, http://www.ci.eau-claire.wi.us/