During the next three weeks, the Bainbridge City Council will come up with a financial blueprint that will allow the city to successfully pay its way through 2009.

The critical event in this scenario is likely to occur on March 18 when the council and administration hold an all-day session aimed at bringing the city’s expenditures in line with a revenue forecast that Administrator Mark Dombroski outlined during a Finance & Personnel Committee meeting on Tuesday.

Dombroski offered two estimates of baseline revenue for 2009: $18,030,599 represents an optimistic tax-supported revenue forecast; $15,622,250 is considered a worst-case scenario of what will be available for basic city operations this year.

The more conservative estimate, everyone seemed to agree, may be the one to follow because of the shared belief that we haven’t seen the bottom of this nationwide recession and the continuing free fall of the island’s real estate and construction industries.

The bottom line is that more than $3 million may need to be cut (on top of the $2.3 million that was cut last month from the 2009 budget) this year. So where’s the money going to come from? With about $13 million to be spent on employees ($10 million) and debt service, choices are limited. Most willl need to come from personnel and service contracts, Dombroski said. If revenues come in closer to $18 million, there will be about $2.4 million available for “discretionary” services and commitments.

So, dear council members, good luck in deciding: what is discretionary and what is not; which employees are less valuable to the city’s basic mission than others; and which service organizations can limp along with less money than others. Oh, and by the way, do it as quickly as possible to stop the bleeding.

And when we’re done with that little emergency, the committee seemed to agree, let’s launch a process that analyzes city government with the purpose of perhaps restructuring it going forward. However, cautioned one citizen in attendance, “Let’s not get into profound changes affecting the city’s values because this crisis is not forever.”

In other words: please, may the real estate frenzy return ASAP.