May 6, 2025 6:00 PM - Redding City Council - Regular Meeting

>> All right, let's get this party started. >> Mr. Mayor, if I report out of closed session, the city council met to consider Item 3A and there was no reportable action. >> Thank you, sir. If anyone wishes to address the city council on any item considered at this meeting before or during council's consideration of that item, please enter your name in the electronic kiosk located in the lobby. The city council will allocate up to a maximum of 3 minutes per speaker for each agenda item. Staff reports are available online at the city's website, cityofreading.gov or in the public view binder located on the podium at the north side of the chambers. >> All right. >> We pledge the ". Mr. Lacasse. >> Ready? >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Invocation, Ms. Debbie. >> Good evening and welcome. And a special shout out to all you asphalt cowboys. As a citizen of this community since 1964, I have thoroughly enjoyed all the activities that you have sponsored in our community. So, thank you. Now, let's bow our head and pray. Our heavenly father, we welcome your presence as we participate in discussions on the betterment of our city and community. We'd like to take a moment to recognize the events that we traditionally celebrate this month. The National Day of Prayer. A time to lift up in prayer the concerns of our city, state, nation and world. A day to honor all mothers for their never-ending advice, support and encouragement. A day of remembrance for those who served in the armed forces and made the ultimate sacrifice in preserving the freedoms we so often take for granted. And lastly, the week of May 11th through 17th, designated as a time to honor the men and women who have answered your call to serve in law enforcement. As your word states, blessed are the peacemakers. We pay tribute to those that have served and continue to serve to maintain order in our communities. And pray for your armor of protection to surround them. For all that we are blessed and for the privileges that we enjoy, we proclaim the glory and the honor belongs to you. And it is the name of our father that we pray. Amen. >> Thank you, Debbie. >> All right. >> All right. Ms. Sharp? >> [ROLL CALL] >> Thank you. >> All right. Public comment. Pursuant to the Brown Act, City council cannot take action on public comment items. City council will allocate up to a maximum of 3 minutes per speaker or 30 minutes total at the beginning of the meeting for public comment and for non agendized matters within the city's jurisdiction, the mayor will determine the order of speakers. If 30 minutes is not adequate to accommodate all of the individuals who have submitted their names through the electronic kiosk, the council will trail this item to the end of the open session agenda. Remaining speakers will address the city council at that time. >> No speakers. >> All right. Let's move on. Consent Calendar. Consent calendar contains items considered routine and or which have been individually scrutinized by city council members and are anticipated to require no further deliberation. Remember that the public wishes to address an item on the consent agenda, please fill out a speaker request form and submit it to the city clerk before the Consent Agenda is considered. It shall be the prerogative of any council member before the consent Calendar is active. On to 1, comment on an item 2, respond to any public comment on an item 3, request the record reflect an abstention or a NA vote on an item and 4, remove the item and place it on the regular portion of the agenda for delivery of staff report and or extended discussion or deliberation. Do we have anybody's questions or wants to pull anything or do I get a recommendation? >> We got speakers. >> Okay. >> Sorry, I can't even find them up here. >> All right. Jacqueline Treadway, you're up out of here right after the green mic. >> Hello. I want to hear talked about. As a population of the homeless, it is currently non-responsive to the typical off-road relocation, typical shelters and mandated job applications. Why are they not grateful and obedient to the shelter's protocols of choosing the one correct task to a house and publicly acceptable life? This is a national dilemma and it's amazing that it seems no one sought to ask them or find out why they're not responding. These are those on the autistic spectrum who are five times more likely to become homeless than any other average person. And add to that multiples of years that they've been homeless and generations that they've been homeless. That they are the vast majority of the chronically homeless population in every community. They are the invisible homeless that the elected officials don't know how to address. These are the same souls that Governor Newsom proclaimed last month the month of acceptance for their diversity, creativity and assets and enrichment to the community with the appropriate support and empowerment environment. Most thought that depriving them. Most of the officials thought that depriving them of food, pants, blankets and sanitation are punishments for indulging in their fundamental human behaviors that would motivate them to accept and comply with typical shelter conditions. It did not. It reduces their status from human to animal, such as when they are deprived from their basic needs in their natural environment, they're driven to the streets and prey on the public or left to starve to death in their chosen home. Taking away all their life support needs simply reduces them to a less than human status of life that can be gradually exterminated. There is only one comprehensive transformational housing and developmental project proposal nationally developed for this target population and developed in unity with the public consultation, and that's right here in Reading. I believe that Reading counselors would show wisdom in tabling this vote tonight and getting more informed on the neurodivergence dilemma and how they can be appropriately housed and appropriately developed so that they become assets to the community. And for anybody that would like to know more, I'm offering my services to educate the counselors as well as you can. Look at the Developing Diamonds Community website and find out more about this particular program. >> Okay, may I just ask, can you repeat what was the program you're referring to? >> Say it again. >> Can you repeat the name of the program you're referring to? >> The program is Developing Diamonds Community is a website, and I have cards that. >> I would like to know more about it later. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Jacqueline. >> Thank you. >> All right, entertain a motion. >> I'll make a motion to approve consent. >> Okay, I'll second. >> All right, all in favor? >> Aye. >> Why isn't mine coming on? All right, move to item five. My pick for the Nassau County Commission on Aging, Mr. Michael Brokloss. We finally got somebody who was 55 years old to apply. It's been. Vanessa didn't have anybody when she was mayor, so it's been a while. >> Nobody wanted to do it. >> So, he is well qualified. I talked to him by phone and then talked to his reference, who I didn't know at the time, was his girlfriend, so she recommended him. >> Well, here we go. >> Thankful. >> Motion to approve. >> I'll second. >> All right, all in favor? >> Aye. >> I abstained. Just kidding. >> Yes. >> I am just lost on all this stuff here. All right, moving on to public hearing for the housing community development. >> I need to read this thing. >> Get in, vote. >> The court challenged any action taken by the city council on any project or decision may be limited to only those issues raised during the public hearing or in writing. Written correspondence delivered to the city council during or prior to the public hearing. We don't have to do that. Okay, Nicole, Take it away. >> Thank you. Good evening, honorable mayor and members of city council. Item 6.1 this evening is concerned with the 25 2025-2029 consolidated plan. As a requirement for receipt of community Development Block grant funds as well as home investment partnership funds from the federal government, we are required to submit a five-year strategic plan detailing information that we need regarding our community and our community's needs and where we would like to send those funds. The typical types of projects funded with HOME and CDBG are listed on this slide. Affordable housing, housing rehab, homeless prevention, public improvements, economic development and public service. Here we have a strategic planning process. This slide depicts the public participation and consultation included within our planning process for the consolidated plan. Public input was received via workshops, surveys, public meetings, as well as collaboration with local service providers and stakeholders for the need's assessment and market analysis. PED provides specific data sets to each community and it also asks for specific questions. It has prescribed information it would like for us to provide within the strategic planning process and in the results consulting document. Staff also obtains additional information to complete the goals for the next five years. Included in the CON Plan is the first-year annual action plan. So, if you look at this, we have the CON Plans for five years and then each year there's an annual action plan that depicts what we plan on, spending our CDBG and our home allocations on and what those projects are. And then you have after that, each year you have a caper. And what a caper is you're basically reporting on what your action plan detailed and if you met your goals within your action plan. Some of the outreach and the engagement that we participated in during this planning process included public meetings and community workshops. We had a housing needs workshop, housing needs discussion with NorCal Continuum of Care and SHASTA Advisory Board. We had a community development advisory committee at least two meetings. We also had an online survey that was sent out to the community. We had 362 responses to that survey. We've engaged with 85/ local agencies and organizations and of course I mentioned earlier, we collaborated with NORCAL Consumer Care now for the first year of the annual action plan. These are estimates on how much funding we believe that we will receive. We have not actually received any kind of notification from the federal government yet with regard to what the allocations will be for the 2025, 26 annual plan year. So, this is an estimate and we have approximately for CDBG about 934,000 and for home investment Partnership program included with program income about 1.2 million. Now these are the priority needs funding areas that came out of this out of this planning process. Affordable housing, homeless prevention, emergency services, employment and economic development as well as public facility and infrastructure improvement. Now when we talk about affordable housing, the Home Investment Partnership program really is funding that is utilized to increase affordable housing units in the community. We try to expand traditional permanent housing options by developing single family and multifamily affordable housing units. We try to tie assistance to upcoming affordable housing projects through partnerships in the community as well as any state funds, state NOFAs that may be coming out for participation and application to. We provide home buyer and rehab assistance to low mod income households within the city of Reading as well as trying to support special needs in senior housing. And we encourage the development of ADUs Accessory Dwelling Units and mixed income communities. As far as public service projects, public service projects are traditionally funded with CDBG funding and each year HUD allows you to spend up to 15% of your allocation toward public service projects. And here this year we went through the process and typically we have a NOFA that is published in January and it's about out for about 30 days which gives the opportunity for nonprofit agencies to apply for these public service funds. And we went through that process this year and the applications were rated and ranked by the CDAC committee. And here we have our recommended projects. Faith Works for intensive support case management for Francis court families of 25,000. Child Abuse Prevention Council for their cat hope of 22,000 youth violence prevention council for their peer court 22,000 Lutheran Social Services for their Goodwater Crossing micro shelter site 20,000 and United Way in Northern California for their Mark street micro shelter for operations funds of 10,000. We also received applications for public facility and infrastructure improvements and here we have these. The types of things that we can fund with this money is ADA accessibility, curb ramps, sidewalk upgrades in low income areas of the city. We can strengthen public facilities through upgrades, removal of lead-based paint and code enforcement activities as well as improve facilities and infrastructure in low mine income neighborhoods. And also, we are assisting South City park with Section 108 loan payments. Specifically, we will be allocating $86,494 to ADA, 141,364 to Code Enforcement and of course approximately 122,000 toward the 108-loan payment for South City Park. As part of receiving grant funding. We are also able to allocate some funding to administrative costs for home investment Partnership program. We're able to allocate 10% of our grant award to administration. CBBG is 20%. We also have activity delivery funds that we are able to utilize for project delivery of our loan servicing and our rehab program. And as far as economic development, we can fund economic development which is promoting job creation and self-sufficiency within our community and also to encourage living wage employment and support business activity funding. This year we had a few applications and we will be funding EDC for $50,000 to fund job creation in the Reading community. So, in closing, staff recommends opening and closing of the public hearing and having City council adopt the resolution approving the submission of the CON plan and the annual action plan to HUD as well as providing authorization to the City Manager to sign all necessary documents to submit the package to HUD. This concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions. >> Thank you, Nicole. Questions, anybody? Public hearing is now open. The court challenge to action taken by the City council on any project or decision may be limited to only those issues raised during the public hearing or in written correspondence delivered to the City council during prior or for the public hearing. No comments. All right, that was easy. Public hearing is closed. We entertain any questions, nomination or recommendation. >> Motion to approve unless someone has any comment. >> Second. >> All right. All in favor? >> Aye. >> Thank you, Nicole. >> Thank you, Nicole, very much. All right, all right, we are moving on now. Number I think we're going to put the rodeo thing to the end after the budget. Well, I was thinking you guys might want to participate. It'd be quite fun. All right, Number nine. I don't know how to say but " Can I get a but? How do you say it? >> Yahoo. >> Oh, yee haw. >> Sorry, I get a yee haw. >> All right. I totally messed that up. But anyway. All right, Mr. Tippin? >> Thank you, Honorable Mayor. For obvious reasons, I'll make this sort of quick. So, we started on this process last spring when Ted Bambino suggested that the council move forward on a new lease amendment. So we had an ad hoc that was created that consisted of then Mayor Audette and Councilmember Johnson, who later became Vice Mayor Littau, who became the ad hoc member. But we met with Ted Bambino and Baron Browning of the Reading Rodeo association for a number of meetings, probably 6, 7, 8 meetings, and developed a letter of intent that was approved by the city Council in November. And I think most people recall that since that time we've been working diligently through the actual lease agreement. It needed to be changed in some areas because it's a much longer lease and also just to update it for current standards. Happy to say that we've been able to work through all of that. And I actually have a Attached to the staff report is the lease agreement that's signed by the Reading Rodeo association for your consideration tonight. The key elements of that lease are a 25-year primary lease with two 10-year optional extensions which provides a long-term security for the Reading Rodeo Association. There're commitments for that lease. They're still paying 50 bucks a year, but there are certain commitments of improvements to the facility to the tune of about 12 million plus dollars. That's just rough estimates for now. And it's the announcer's booth, private boxes, grandstands, all within performance milestones in terms of years, in terms of when they have to be complete or when the 60% drawings have to be submitted to city for approval. So, there's metrics along the way so we can make sure that we're all making great use of the facility and that it's being used to a maximum extent. Obviously, they're going to host the Reading Rodeo association, but they're also going to be working to expand those community event programming at the rodeo ground. We all recognize that there's some conflicts at times that exist in terms of that small area down there and the limited parking. So, there'll be a quarterly meeting requirement where all of the vendors down there are meet along with the city and we discuss things like parking event coordination and that sort of thing. In particular, we're going to develop a parking plan that can be initiated if there's potential conflict between events. We can initiate a parking plan which may be using parking other locations of the city and maybe use of RABA or other charter systems to get people in and out of the facility. And so that I think will be a key point of trying to keep as much activity down there as possible. I know they've already been working with our community services department, see what we can do to engage children during the summer programs to get them introduced to the rodeo way of life. There're other updates that are required for CEQA or for prevailing wage issues. And there's been an increase in the requirement insurance based on current standards in the state of the conditions of California and jury awards. So, we've updated that and everybody's been gracious to recognize that that's an important element. You know, I think what we also have done is recognize that we're going to have a specific plan that's going to be considered by the council in two weeks, which will be sort of a scoping overview of the plan and that will continue working towards completion, hopefully at the end of this year or early next. And within that, there's futures that we don't know, but that have been imagined. So, we've recognized that, and we've developed a clause within the lease agreement that if at some point in the future it's decided we need to do something different than what we have down there, then the Ready Roadie association will make completely whole for any investments they've done. So, we've. We've reached agreement on language that would allow that to happen in a very systematic way and in accordance with everybody's agreement. So, with that, I will close my comments, and I'm available for any questions that I. >> Sure. >> Ted, I'd like to see Mr. Bambino. Come on up, say a few words. [APPLAUSE] >> Thank you. City council. We get 45 years. I get more than three minutes. >> Yes. >> All right. So, city council, city staff, thank you for the time this evening. I have some thank you to do along the way. As Barry indicated, the ad hoc committee was not really something we wanted to do, and we bought into it. And after we did that eight weeks, I think it was. It was the best thing we did. It was enlightening. It developed a partnership that we can go forward with for many years. We're going to be gone. Our juniors are currently right now practicing for their parades coming up. But this is going to benefit them immensely going down the road so they don't have to worry about these leases and they can just stick to business. I'd like to thank the city council and the ad hoc committee, which was developed through this whole process. I know you guys were not all on the council at the time, but your support was felt and seen, and we appreciate it very much. Also, the city staff and Christian and his staff, we were on you all the time. Your load was heavy and we were anxious, and I appreciate your hard work and time working with our council to get us through this. I especially want to thank Mr. Barry Tippin and his professionalism. His determination to get this through for the betterment of this community was enlightening. He volunteered his time to come to our clubhouse and meet with our board and answer questions, which was a very, very good thing for us to see and really gives us a feeling of partnership going forward than just a leaseholder. And I think that's imperative for us to be successful going down the road. The riverfront specific plan community and everybody that's involved with it we were involved with that along the way, and again, we were hesitant, not knowing what we're looking at. We met with them numerous times. They've asked our opinions, we've given our opinions, the community spoken. And I think as that goes forward, we're anxious to be a part of what that looks like. Here we go. >> All right to my Reading Rodeo association members, I really want to thank you guys for the ongoing commitment and the trust that you put in. Barron and I. There was a lot of unanswered questions along the way, a lot of questions that we didn't have the answers to because this wasn't something that you knew something one day and the next day it was different. We had to develop this thing. And we hope that now you understand why we couldn't come and just kind of hypothetically give some answers. And I appreciate everything that everybody did for the trust you put in for this and the patience that you had. And we're confident that going forward as a unit, we can make this happen for this community. So, I thank you for that as well. Cowboys, you guys have been there every one of these meetings from three years back. You've always been here and always been supportive of us. And we cannot go forward without the partnership of Reading Rodeo and the asphalt cowboys. It is imperative that we unify to make this the best that we can possibly be. And we are well on our way to doing that. And your appearance here tonight is much appreciated, and I thank you for that. Last but not least, our community. We have got a fabulous community and they have supported us every step of the way from way back. Like I said, three and a half years ago, we didn't call for them. They came to defend us. They came because they want this rodeo grounds there. During the specific plan, they indicated they want to see improvements. So do we. And we're going to do that. to be committed to this community to give back to what they've given us over these past years. We got a great rodeo coming up and you'll see them out in groves, and we're really excited about that. I could go on for hours about the people that have really helped us along the way. A couple quick shout outs. I'd like to thank Dan Muir, who was our counsel through this process. Dan worked with Christian and they did the legal aspect of this, and he looked out for the best interest of the Reading Rodeo association and did a fabulous job. We didn't have any major hiccups. They probably had conversations. We didn't know about. But that's what they get paid for, right? Also, early on in this thing, I want to thank Tyler Wicklow, who was instrumental in getting us down the path last fall when we were not knowing the direction and how to go. And he really helped us along the way, and we appreciate that as well. So, concluding, I would just like to again thank the council for your support. You guys look pretty good up there tonight. I have to admit, it's really enlightening to see the support of this community, the support of the city, and I look forward, as our team does, for a long relationship partnership, because that's what we're geared to do. So, I thank you very much. And if we could get a photo with the council, that would be awesome. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] >> Let's take a vote first. >> We should vote first. >> We should just vote first. >> Let's make sure he wants a picture. >> With all of us. Yeah. >> Yeah. What? We have two more speakers. Sorry about that. All right, Ted spoke. All right, Steve. And then Josh. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Good evening, staff, community members, Rodeo association, house full of cowboys. >> This is a historic day. >> This is huge. This is a time when the whole community, with their concern and local government and different groups have come together and created something that's going to be there for decades. And it is going to create a wonderful thing for everybody involved. Income for the city, entertainment for the people, and, well, what you guys do, you know, the Rodeo Association. And on top of that, the first time I've ever seen City Manager Tippin almost speechless. So that's also a first. >> And I did want to. I wanted to thank Barry Tippin, particularly, because I think he was instrumental in. >> This and all the city staff and. >> You guys, how hard you worked. >> And I just want to say this is a historic moment. >> It's fantastic. >> Mr. Johnson, hello, council. >> Thank you so much. Just wanted to say a few quick words. Being on the ad hoc committee last year was probably one of my highlights. People ask me, you know, some of my favorite moments, being on council for just a short time was actually being able to be in this room with Baron and Ted Bambino and working through this together and seeing the partnership form just across the table. It was truly professional. It was incredible to see Barry at work. He is artful in how to navigate these types of things. And it was great to be on there with then Mayor Tenessa Audette as well. But I think that, you know, all of this, it always comes down to sometimes you just don't know why you're in A place at the right time. And I think there were so many things. I looked back, I said there was a reason for that and being able to build a relationship with Mr. Bambino. I already had a relationship with Barron, but Mr. Bambino was absolutely incredible. It has formed a great friendship that I appreciate now. And it also started some new things, too. And so I will say this. Not only are we going to have an incredible rodeo down there for 45 years, maybe longer, and eventually incredible facilities for this community for years to come. Hopefully my grandchildren will enjoy it long after I'm gone. But, you know, starting new things too, you know? You know, this year, because of this friendship, we're now going to do something called rodeo church on the Sunday night after rodeo. And so, you know, for people that maybe give up on religion and maybe not God, it'll be a great event for them. See a wild horse broken, and it's going to be a pretty cool thing. And so, I'm just grateful for it. So, thank you so much. Thanks for the opportunity. Thank you for the friendship. Let's go,rodeo. [APPLAUSE] >> Thank you, Josh. >> Yes. >> Go for it. >> Motion to approve. >> Second >> All in favor? >> Aye. >> All right, let him see us fix your time. >> I do want to say just one thing, that the city is giving you not just a place in the center of city, but giving you a place in the heart of our city. And I'm sure, I'm confident that you will make us proud of that. Thank you. >> Picture time. [PICTURE TAKING] [APPLAUSE] >> All right, we're moving on. Who's doing all the--. >> Should we? >> Wait a minute? Thanks, Chad. Sarge, thank you. Oh, I don't care. Whatever you want to do, Mr. Robinette. Or is it Mr. Tippin? >> Well, I'll do a very brief startup. So obviously this is item 910A, which is a draft budget for the general fund and the internal service funds. As the council knows, when we adopted the current budget, we adopted it with a structural deficit. So, we knew that that was the case. But we also knew that the economy was in turmoil. We weren't sure if it was going to return, whether it was going to stay flat. Unfortunately, it actually got worse. And so, when we adopted that budget, we immediately started seeing more downturns in revenues. And then we also had expenses, some unplanned, some planned. The planned expenses were things like union contracts that were being negotiated to make sure that we had market wages and we could hire good staff, retain good staff, but obviously that cost money. And so, over the first year or so of the current budget, as things continue to get darker in terms of the budget, we had to start making adjustments, which began in earnest, really in May of 24, and then continued from there. So, as the council was well aware during our recent budget workshops, we've been talking about additional cuts and additional saving opportunities and additional revenue opportunities with service charges increases and that sort of thing. So, all that to say that I'm pretty proud that working with all of the department directors, and particularly with the gentleman on my left, we were able to develop a budget that is balanced. Not only balanced, that we have some surpluses in each of the years, which is really important for two reasons. One is as we've held down some recommended, held on some operating expenses, we know some things are going to come up that we probably will have to deal with. And so, having some cushion there is important. And in addition, as you all know, we still have some grant money that is funding some of our public safety positions that as we move past this current budget year, we're going to need to find capacity within that budget to absorb those positions and make sure they're keeping working for the community. And so, Greg, tonight will give you an overview of the budget as it's being presented. Keeping in mind, of course, that this is really just a preliminary draft general fund and internal service funds. The full budget will be presented to you in June for your final consideration for adoption. So, tonight is not the final, but it's pretty close as far as the general fund and internal service funds goes. And, you know, we'll be able to answer any questions at the end. But hopefully it's a budget you're satisfied with and we can move forward into the next fiscal year with that. I'll hand it over to Greg. >> So, some of my comments are probably going to sound like a broken record. You know, we yet again implemented a new system to do something. This is with our budget module. I'll look at the directors because I'm sure some of them are still learning. They're not in it as much as my staff. So, I want to give a huge shout out to my staff. I always do that. Those of you who have ever worked closely with them, I think you know how hard they work, how much they care and how professional they are. I really appreciate everybody on that entire team. I will especially call out Bailey and Tammy. They've been doing a lot of heavy lifting helping me get us to this point to present this budget. Obviously, this isn't the final budget it's just the preliminary budget we still have. The final budget won't come to council, final proposed budget won't come to council until the second meeting in June, June 17. But this is a culmination of a lot of efforts to get here. And if council likes what we've presented, we will work in earnest to get the document ready either way. And so more work to come. But this is a big milestone and so I just want to thank those people. I also, as I look down at the day, it is my 8th wedding anniversary today and my wife's at home with a sick baby. So, I wanted to give her a shout out. So, we'll get started. So, this right here is a kind of a history of our general fund cash. And I think it's important just to talk about the different lines. So, the green line is our actor. So that's our truly audited cash number. That line always varies from our blue line or our red line. The blue line is kind of, I don't want to call it our best guess. It's an educated guess when we adopt the budget as to what we think the cash will start at in each fiscal year. And of course, it uses the assumptions of revenue and expenses to kind of build the second year beginning cash after the completion of every audit. So, the green line, we then adjust our cash to the red line. That adjustment process includes accounting for things that are encumbered and or already spoken for in our cash reserves. An example of that is ARPA. And so, you can see the green line grows faster than the red line because in 2021 we received $9 million of ARPA, and then 2022 we received another $9 million. Some of that was put into other funds based on the adopted recommendations of council of how to spend that funding. But a majority of it was included in the general fund. But that's the primary difference between the green and the red line. I'll also stop and say while we're getting closer to the end of the fiscal year, we're working on projecting the cash. The current general fund 10-year plan would project that we end the year at about $8 million. I'm hopeful, given some of the activities that we've done year to date, that we might end up closer to 10. And we'll refine that number over the coming month as we head in towards council actually approving the adopted budget. So, the next slide I wanted to talk about, I really wanted to focus on 25, 26. Understanding that this budget problem, as Barry alluded to did exist in 2324 and 2425. Today we're talking about the 2526 and the 2627 budget. So, I kind of wanted to give a high-level overview of kind of the budget deficit, so to speak. And so, you can see there the adopted revenues were 110,473,000. And then the adopted expenses were 111.9 million almost for an adopted deficit of 1.4 million. Since that time, we saw revenue reductions of about 1.6 million. There were changes to the CalPERS unfunded liability due to the discount rate being lowered after they earned a large amount of money. And then actually the following year hers did not meet their 7%. So, they saw what they would consider a loss. Anything under a 7% earning is a loss. And so, between those two things, we saw increases in that 2526 year to the expected unfunded liability payments of about 2.8 million. Additionally, at the time of budget there was some union negotiations in process that had not concluded. Those added about $2.9 million of expenses. Then there were other expense increases for about 1.1 million. Then in May 21, May 21, 2024, we brought the council some recommended cuts. This is when there were 12 firefighters recommended to be cut, nine police officers at that time, an assistant city attorney position that ended up actually being a cancellation of the contract with the county to provide a community prosecution, some development services positions and then a position in our reprographics department. Some of those you'll see throughout the presentation. All told, that meant after those cuts and after all those kinds of increased costs or changes in our revenue assumptions that we were still about a $5.3 million budget problem. With the budget that I'm about to go through, we have solved that problem. When I use the term solve that problem, it's not without pain or other cuts. There are definitely going to be some ramifications for some of the expense reductions that we had to make as part of this budget. Council will remember and I'll try to point it out as we get to those slides that there were also some assumed increases to revenues that we have realized in this as well. That is cannabis tax changes that were done at the first meeting in March. So, you'll see those throughout this presentation. But as we kind of increase some revenues and then of course decreased expenses, we were able to arrive at budget with a surplus in each year. So, I'm going to go through that entire details now. So, I'm going to start by providing kind of a high-level overview of these slides because we're going to get very familiar with these slides over the next few minutes here. This is an internal service fund slide. The graph like the donut chart on the left is a representation of FY2027 breaking down the budget in kind of those broad categories that we typically talk about. Budgets in personnel, O and M, fixed capital debt. And then there's this new little category called spita. It's short for software-based IT arrangement, Information Technology arrangement. So, it's basically a requirement of GFOA that we track that similar to debt. And then you'll see a total budget. And then down there at the bottom right is the number of positions that are included in this budget for the internal service fund. They provide services to all of our departments, not just the general fund. But the focus of the presentation this evening is on the general fund. So, you'll see right above the donut chart there will be a percent general fund breakdown. And that gives you a rough estimate of the impact to the general fund of this department. So, this first department is our records division. It's supervised by the city Clerk's department or falls under the city clerk department, but it's the records division. And as you can see here, this is a department that we've recommended a reduction of 1 FTE as part of this budget. I will also comment that there is a position in here that is fully funded by REU. They had a Nick likes to tell the story but they had a pretty substantial record that needed to be archived load out there. And so, they have a physician that's helping them get caught up not just with physical paper, but I think that's going to become a digital type of endeavor here soon as well. The next budget here is the reprographics department. As you can see here, there's a reduction of one FTE. This was actually acknowledged back in the May 21 meeting that we previously mentioned. This budget is 53% general fund. And the reductions in the budget are largely the result of the removal of the one position. But throughout this presentation you're going to see this idea of that PARS went away. And so, two things are happening if you remove a position. But we also had a substantial PARS rate which was a result of our PARS unfunded liability. That PARS unfunded liability went from being, if you associated it to payroll. Between the unfunded liability and the normal cost, it was about 100% of payroll. And this budget is Only normal cost. And so that's lowered to about 2% on the city cost side. So, you'll notice in some of these departments a reduction in the personnel cost. Sometimes that would be because the number of positions has been reduced. Sometimes that's a result of also those positions that left had pars and we no longer have pars in that budget. Another thing I want to point out, this is a good slide to do it. On the number of positions, you'll see 3.5. The chart is reflecting FTEs. So full time equivalents. So, in the reprographic mail department there's two full time employees and three halftime employees. So those three halftime employees become one and a half FTEs for a total of three and a half FTEs. >> Can I ask you a quick question? >> Yes. >> Just because we don't have this printed out, so I won't be able to go back to it. To remember on the first slide. >> Did. >> O and M go up double? I'm sorry, the first of the--- >> Yeah, this is a result of the new IQM2 software system. It's going to cost us more money. So, we have to recognize that increased cost here. >> And there's just a new computer system. >> The new system to actually run the agendas that get sent out to public and to council for the meetings. >> It's like a computer thing. >> Software. Yeah, it's a software. Okay, so this next department, this is a good opportunity for me to stop and talk about cross charges. When we as a city recognize personnel expenses, that doesn't always mean that it's a position in that department. Sometimes you are either charging other departments or, or you are receiving charges from departments. In the case of employer services, which is managed by our personnel department, they have cross charges from anybody who is involved in labor negotiations and or issues. They charge this department. So, both of the gentlemen sitting on my right charge this department to help with labor negotiations and different items that come up. There's some staff in my department that charges this department as well. And then of course the personnel department probably is the lion's share of that. But as you can note at the bottom there is no full-time positions or any type of position that actually is housed within this division. And this division is 59% general fund. The next budget is volunteer services. This department's budget overall has gone down. This is somewhat of recognition as we go through the budget process. The departments, you know, they're tasked to not just come up with what they need from an expenditure standpoint, but also make sure that the charges within the department are making sense. And so there was a decision made to kind of change the way the person in this position is charging their time. So, they're actually charging more time out of this department to other kind of divisions within the personnel umbrella. And so that's why that's the major reason that's going down. The next department. This is one of those. I think one of our council members is intimately aware with what I'm about to say. This department is largely driven by increases to our insurance cost. We have seen substantial increases over the past almost six, seven years at this point. It continues to go up. We've built in some pretty substantial increases. I will warn council, it feels like no matter what we do, we're chasing a runaway train. And so there is some risk here that we might be back to council six months from now or a year from now saying, hey, it's even higher than we thought. But we have built in some increases for the increases in the insurance costs and also some increases for kind of our claims and different claims that we have against the city. The cost of those kind of either litigating them and or settling them within this budget. But this budget, in the future you're going to start to see risk, liability and workers comp distinctly separated. It used to be all in one fund, one department. Frankly, kind of confusing for our city attorney and our personnel department to manage their separate pieces. With the new system and an opportunity to look at our chart of accounts, we in finance made the decision that we were going to separate those. This is the first budget where we're actually fully able to separate them. But given the fact that we're trying to have a historical context of these departments' conversation, I went ahead and combined them together for the last time. This budget in the future we will start talking about them as two distinct internal service funds. So, the next department is the building maintenance department. I think what stood out to me on this chart was, or on this slide was the FTEs. From 2018 to 2025 there's an increase of, you know, three and a half FTEs. We took a part time position, made it a full time, and then added three FTEs on top of that. And it's a large increase. Travis and his team have kind of this industry standard and the industry standard is one position per 50,000 square feet. There's a handout that council received where it's quoted as saying one position for every 70,000 square feet is our current service level. With those additional positions, Travis has actually refined that number even further. And he said it's closer to one to every hundred thousand feet of square footage. So, while we have increased positions here, we're still well below the industry standard that they measure themselves against. And that was the reason for the increases at the time, was to try to get to a better level of service for all of our buildings throughout the community that we own and maintain. Yeah. >> And if I may just add to that, to connect this slide to the slide you saw two back. The service levels can. And your ability to maintain adequate levels of maintenance on your facilities can impact what your claims experience looks like and what your overall liability picture is. Now, our insurance premiums are driven less by our individual experience than it is by the statewide trend and what we're seeing throughout California overall. But I do just want to highlight that the more we end up with shortfalls on maintenance of the facilities that we have, the more exposure we have to liability overall. >> Is this fiscal year beginning in 25? >> Or fiscal year 25. And actually. Good point. Good question or point. I use the adopted budget for that kind of column there. >> So, it's not the actual numbers. >> It's not actual expense, because it's not over yet. I think it's more appropriate to compare adopted to adopted as opposed to amended, which, frankly, you can get into a conversation about. What amended number do you want to use? Do you want to use the amended number that includes carryovers, which then make these numbers look huge and they're not even comparable, or do you want to use just the amended number I.e. actual actions taken by council, which, to be frank, is usually pretty small? Those types of adjustments aren't usually very big. So, I just took adopted, because, frankly, even from an adopted perspective, we had a lot of work to do in terms of cutting our budgets. So that's why I use that. And I think it's a better representation of what we want to compare to. >> Do we have like 24 numbers? The actuals? >> Yeah, I don't have them on this slide, of course, but yes, I have them. >> Sorry. >> So, the next one here is our public relations, marketing, communications. You might hear it called any or all of those, depending on the day. This down there. If you're looking at the FTEs, you'll see in 2018, there were zero. This division did not exist in 2018. I have to look to Barry. What year did we stand it up? 2019, 1920. So in around the 2019, 2020-time frame, we stood this up. As you can notice, there was a position that we attributed from this department in the January time frame. And so, they will be removing one FTE in the current budget. Also. I will shut them out. They did a very good job of analyzing all their own M and making substantial cuts to their O and M, as you can see. The next slide here is for our fleet department. Again, I will call out or shout out that there is six more FTEs in this department from 2018. Some of these are directly paid for by solid waste. Solid waste was effectively screaming for a better level of service. And. And they were willing to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. Additionally, every other department, every time we would sit down and talk about fleet as a group of department directors and budget, our budget team, every department wanted a better level of service. And frankly, our fleet department always said, we need more people to get these vehicles turned around faster. And so, between solid waste and you name the department of police, fire, RU, everybody wanting a better level of service, there were increases to this department that were given from the kind of 2018-2022-time frame. I do want to point out this is a department that over the years we've seen gets heavily impacted by inflation. So, their O and M expenses have gone up pretty substantially over the years, and there is some risk here with the numbers we've adopted that we don't properly encapsulate it. I do know over the years, I remember saying to council multiple times, we don't have quite enough money in our parts account due to inflation. And so, depending on where inflation goes over the next year or two, we might be back to council asking for more money for our fleet parts that we're putting on our vehicles. The fleet department maintains all city vehicles. Sorry, I probably should be doing that on every slide. But they maintain all the city vehicles, and they're 24% of, of the general fund. 24% to the general fund of their cost. The next department is our IT department. So, within this, you're going to see from 2018 to 2025, a reduction of one position and then one more position in 2027. On the next slide, you're going to see those positions that have been moved over to our communications that used to be recognized as only radios, but it has made the decision to kind of transition some of the costs of things like the citywide telephones that we use, the Internet service that we use into the communications division instead of IT. So, there's a shift of positions and also a shift of some O and M expenses from this budget to that budget. So, in a couple slides, you'll see the communications budget and you'll say, wow, this looks like it increased a lot. It's net neutral between these two. I will point out if you were doing the math in 25, you might be. Well, it looks like they have one extra position. There was somebody that retired in 2025. The next department here is the Geographic Information System. They provide kind of mapping services throughout the city. They're 33% general fund. Largely their budget is the same other than their fixed charges from the other departments. This is a good opportunity for me to talk about fixed charges. Fixed charges are something that have different measurements depending on the fixed charges. But they're charges that they like Geographic Information systems receives from other internal service funds for if they own a vehicle, they're going to pay fleet some amount for that vehicle's maintenance. Every time we do a budget, were kind of allocate those based on those allocation methodologies. And. And so sometimes departments can be hit negatively or more positively depending on those measurements and how it might fluctuate from budget to budget. The next one is the communications budget and as I referenced, you'll see some increases here of a shift from in positions and in personnel costs from the IT budget. Importantly, also, there's a capital line here, probably the first time we've seen a capital line. One of any notes. And they're planning to start to repair some of our switches and infrastructure around how our actual network works within City hall and other facilities. That increase O and M is largely the result of the shift of actually the Internet services from IT to here. So now move. We're kind of moving into departments that live within the general fund. I always like to kind of explain general government as it's kind of like an internal service fund that somebody years ago decided to leave in the general fund and do what we call a cost allocation plan. This is the first slide where you're going to start seeing a call out at the bottom of that kind of chart where we indicate revenues. So, the total is kind of total expenses and then a revenue call out. So, the revenues for this group of departments is what we call our cost allocation plan. That effectively is very similar to being an internal service fund and bringing in a revenue. This revenue just comes into the general fund. We do not allocate to the general fund departments. We measure what the allocation would be, but we don't charge the general fund departments because effectively we would be moving money from the general fund to the general fund. And that doesn't really make sense. So effectively any cost difference that you see there is services that these departments provide to our major general fund departments which would be police, fire, public works, community services, which is parks and recreation. So, as you can see here, the total budget of all general government I'm going to get through. I'm going to go through each of the general government departments in just a second. Quick summary or quick listing of those is city manager, city attorney, city clerk, financial services, which includes finance, treasure and purchasing and the personnel department. As you will see there, there's a reduction from the previous budget of one position. That one position is the assistant city clerk that we attributed when Ms. Tipton was promoted to the city clerk. >> The revenues, where does that come in at? >> It comes into the general. >> Is it said transfer? >> It comes into internal departments would be the line that you see internal departments I did on the ten-year plan. You would see it called out as internal department for a lot of the materials later on in this presentation and the materials that were in the staff report, I did try to break out separately from internal departments. This revenue and what we call our pilot revenue or our property in lieu of tax revenue from the REU. >> Yeah, but are they sometimes. >> They are on our tenure plan. They are always together. Yes, but I just felt like it was useful information for council to see those separated a little more and a little more granularity. Okay, so first, you all actually are part of our general government. I forgot to mention city council. So, city council, relatively small budget. It's, you know, honestly, it's heavily impacted in terms of the quantity of budget by city council members who utilize different city benefits. So that's the main reason it's going down is just fewer council members utilizing say less of the benefits that we offer to council members. And then I'll also call out the fixed charges because that's probably the most glaring one as part of this transition to the new system. I would say there have been a lot of questions, but there was this question of well, should we really be allocating the city council for this, this item. And so there were some decisions made to say, hey, let's not allocate for that because effectively we're just allocating it here and it's getting spread back out to everybody else. And so, we made some changes to some of our fixed charge methodology so that it doesn't have to kind of run through city council, which frankly, as you can see here, isn't much of a department. And you all aren't even full-time positions, but we count them as full-time positions not paid like one. So that's the largest paid part time. >> But it for sure is full time. >> Yes, paid part time, full time count. So, five positions. This hasn't changed. And as you can see there, the kind of the breakdown of a pretty small budget to our general fund. And again, this budget, like city manager, like financial services that you'll see is part of that cost allocation plan. And so, I think I was about to say it and I may have kind of veered off course of the general government. 33% is basically for services that are rendered for other general fund departments. As I said, police, fire, public works, development services, community services, things like that. So, it's not like the cost to the city Manager's office. It's the cost to those departments for the services that the city manager or city council provides. The next one is the city Manager's office. I'll call out a significant decrease of personnel. That's largely the result of PARS decreases. That's one big thing. But also, more cross charges for the services that they're providing directly for departments I use. Steve's not here, so I guess we can pick on him. But Steve, he cross charges out a lot of his time because he oversees housing, Raba Airport. So very little of Steve's actual time stays within the City Manager's budget, even though his FTE is allocated to the city manager budget. So those are what we call cross charges out. The City manager took the lead and reduced his O and M through this process. I also wanted to call out. You'll see. Well, why did city manager's office go up one FTE from 2018 to 2025? Some of you may remember the City Manager now used to be an assistant City Manager who was assigned to REU. He was the REU director at that time. He was actually an FTE associated to REU. So, when the 2018 budget was adopted, he was still in RU as the assistant City Manager. Right after the budget was adopted, he was promoted to the City Manager. And that's what set in motion kind of that first kind of organizational chart change, which then became an ACM who was also over personnel, which are both general fund departments. So, we went ahead and moved that FTE to the City Manager's office at that time. Since then, that assistant City Manager has retired and now Steve Bate is that kind of fourth FTE in that department. Next up is the city Attorney's office. Same number of FTEs, largely in unchanged budget, other than some increased personnel costs due to just the difference of costs associated to the employees from the previous budget. And some of that is based on you project. And many of you will know that some of those FTEs for our city attorney's office were unfilled for many years. We just recently have filled them. And so, this reflects kind of the cost of those positions as budgeted. >> Oh, oh, now we're going too many. >> Next budget up is the city clerk's office. You'll see personnel. Oh, it dropped significantly again. Yes, some of that is because we reduced the position. But again, these small departments, when they no longer have pars, it's a substantial savings to the budget. And so, this one particularly had a lot of PARS cost in it and so it's gone down as a result. This also has one less FTE as part of this budget, as we have made council aware for some number of months now. And the next budget that's up is personnel. Personnel, little increase to their personnel cost. Again, a lot of that's probably shifting across charges as I mentioned, with volunteer services, they're probably associating more of their time to the services that they do as a personnel department as opposed to putting the cost in volunteer services where the efforts aren't as much as in their personnel department. The number of positions, you'll see it went from six to eight. That was to reflect just the sheer magnitude of the workload that they had over those years. And then you might ask, well, there's one less FTE in this current budget. The next slide will be my department. There was a decision made in the last six months to shift a position that would work in personnel and kind of help with payroll processing from personnel to financial services just to be more effective and have more backup in terms of our payroll processing. Debbie Ivey, wonderful lady, used to work for finance actually, that she would actually plan her vacations around payroll processing weeks. And she was dedicated to making sure we were all paid and she would be here and do it. But we're hoping by shifting that position we're able to get some redundancies, not just on the personnel side, but on the finance side to allow people to not have to plan their lives around payroll every two weeks. So that's part of the effort and just really trying to recognize where the work is best performed. So, the next department is financial Services. And as you can see there, as I pointed out, that additional FTE firm personnel prior to that, from 2018 to 2025, we ac