City taxpayers: Your new City Council and mayor have some bad news, and some more bad news.

First, the bad news: Some new fees are almost surely in the offing. As for the other bad news, it’s likely that we’ll get less for our money, too.

Honolulu residents could probably accept such a reality check as the city works to keep its budget balanced, but so far they’re still waiting for a full accounting from their elected representatives.

The Council does deserve a little slack, of course. Monday was its inaugural session, and fully half of the eight members sworn in are new to city government. The ninth member, Tom Berg, was elected in the final special election last week and won’t be sworn in until Jan. 18; he’s new, too.

But even given this malihini factor, the honeymoon phase is wearing off quickly among the voters, who deserve more detailed — and balanced — plans from their representatives. So far, all the Council has done is ruminate over raising revenue with new or increased user fees to fill the city’s anticipated deficit topping $100 million for the coming fiscal year. Nestor Garcia, the Council chairman, referenced the idea in his speech at the ceremony, euphemistically describing the new revenue-producing scheme as a "pay as you go" system. Mayor Peter Carlisle also has said he favors this approach.

User fees are not a new idea — they were part of former Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s proposed budget-balancing act, too. Certainly there should be a way to bring in more money from limited commodities such as parking spaces. Some other activities that are in demand, such as camping, could produce revenue, as long as the more routine use of public parks remains free of charge.

But both the Council and the mayor also must start with the assumption that status-quo spending will have to be curbed as well. This will not be easy, because most of the spending in government is on personnel and making any significant reductions in labor costs requires union agreement. Mayor Carlisle has stated his intention to drive a hard bargain with public-employee unions, but he won’t get a chance to deliver on that pledge for some time.

But meanwhile, the Council and administration could bring the public into the budget discussions. Usually they are invited to the Council chamber with testimony, but Council members could do a listening tour within their districts to bring in more participation. Web-based ways of making city governance more interactive should be explored, too.

The questions: Could money be saved by eliminating or reducing some services? Could some functions be handled more efficiently through a private contract? If the public doesn’t want to dig deeper for fees, what would they be willing to give up to erase the red ink?

Reasonable people are always willing to "pay as they go." But in city government, just as in household finances, budgets can’t be balanced only on the revenue side. Taxpayers want to see city officials come up with ways to cut expenses before they ask folks to shell out more money, year after year.