City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome everyone to the notice and call of a special city council meeting budget workshop in the city council chambers today, April 21st, 2026. I now call this meeting to order. Roll call. District 1, Council Member Casey, present. District 2, Council Member Vieiraa, present. District 3, Council Member Otto, here. District 4. Vice Mayor Martinez present. Mayor Lopez

here. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. We will now enter into citizens communications. And just so everybody knows, there will be an opportunity later on during the budget after the budget workshop for the public to make a comment. This section is strictly for any other citizens communications. where the city council welcomes and encourages participation in city council meetings. Adopt a rules allow no more than 5 minutes. Resolution 2007106. Members of the public interested in addressing the city council during the special meeting may address the items which have been described in the notice of the special meeting in accordance with government code section 5494, excuse me, 95, excuse me, 94.3. Anyone wishing to address the city council must adhere to the rules of decorum. The rules of decorum are posted outside the chamber doors. Is there anybody in the audience that would like to make a comment? Is there anybody on Zoom?

There are no hands raised. Any emails? And there were no emails received.

Okay, thank you very much. We will now close the public comment section and we will now move on to our new business. And this new business for today is the budget workshop on draft fiscal year 2027 proposed budget. Our finance director, Vanessa Portillo, will present the staff report. Thank you. Good afternoon, mayor, council members, and members of our community. Thank you for joining us in the f for the fiscal year 27 proposed budget workshop. My name is Vanessa Portillo. I'm the finance director here for the city of s series and today I'll walk you through the city's financial outlook key budget drivers and major challenges shaping the fiscal year 27 proposed budget. This workshop is intended to provide a highle overview with a specific focus on the general fund, receive feedback from the council and the public, and help guide the development of the final budget for adoption. Our next slide. In our agenda tonight, our presentation will cover the budget process and timeline, a citywide overview of all funds, staffing updates, and a deeper look at the general fund. We will also highlight major impacts to the budget through key revenue and expenditure trends and close with the next steps in the adoption process. Before diving into the numbers, I want to briefly walk you through how this budget came together. Our budget process began earlier in this year with a kickoff in January, followed by

department budget preparation and submittals in late February through early March. From there, the city manager and finance staff conducted detailed reviews with departments analyzing revenues, expenditures, and overall fiscal impacts. The budget the budget process, it's both technical and collaborative. It it involves financial forecasting, policy decisions, and coordinating across all departments. At its core, it's about aligning available resources with community priorities while maintaining long-term financial sustainability. We are in our we are in our workshop tonight and in in this workshop it represents an important milestone where we present the preliminary budget and gather feedback before returning with a proposed budget for adoption in May and June. Our next slide it's four. We're back. Perfect. Thank you. Our budget workshop. The purpose for tonight's workshop, it's three-fold. First, to present preliminary budget information. Second, to receive feedback from public from the public. And third, to receive direction and guidance from the city council. This feedback will help help us refine the budget before it is formally adopted. So for the fiscal 27 budget, this is an overview for all funds. At a high level, the fiscal year 27 proposed budget reflects several structural and operational updates. This includes the creation of a new

solid waste enterprise fund fund 587, updates to internal service fund or ISFs meth uh allocation methodologies and the addition of two positions, one administrative analyst for the wastewater department and one accounting technician in the finance department. Um, and I have to disclose that council member Vieiraa did flag a miss bill. Um in this slide uh we had in the slides that um are handled in the public it says waste or water. It is meant to say wastewater. We have made the update in this um in our slide. Um dispositions did not impact the general fund. These changes improve transparency, cost allocation and operational alignment across the organization. For the citywide budget totals, citywide total revenues are projected at approximately 86.6 million with expenditures at 84.9. Personnel costs account for about 32.1 million while operations and maintenance make up approximately 52.8 million. capital imp improvements and debt service will be finalized as part of the budget adoption process. So, um this slide for the citywide budget, it will change um when we bring it back in May and June to include those uh capital improvement cost and reflect them there for your review and approval for staffing updates. From a staffing perspective, the fiscical year 27 budget includes two new positions, an administrative analyst in wastewater and an accounting technician in finance.

Both both positions are funded outside of the general fund. The unfunded positions total remain at 14 positions for fiscal year 27. There are no recommendations to unfund additional positions. This this reflects a continued effort to maintain current service levels and support operations without increasing pressure on our most constrained fund which is the general fund. Now I'll transition to the general fund which is the city's primary operating fund and supports core services such as police, fire, parks and administration. This is where we see most of the significant financial pressures and policy recommendations. There are several key factors shaping the fiscical year 27 general fund budget. Specifically, we are seeing an increase in unfunded pension liabilities, a significant increase in the fire services contract, flat performance at major revenue sources like property and sales tax, rising personnel cost, and a decrease in charges for services largely tied to the cannabis development agreement. The general fund relies heavily on three primary revenue sources. property tax, sales tax, and charges for services. Together, these revenue sources represent twothirds of the total revenues, and they form the backbone of our operating budget. We have a a historical graph on our property tax. And as you can see, our

property tax continues to show steady growth over time. Total growth from fiscal year 22 through 25 totals about 1.5 million. Except for fiscal year 22 where our actuals did not meet the property tax projection. All other years our actuals have outperformed outperformed the budgeted projections by by a total of nearly $900,000. For fiscal year 27, we're projecting a modest increase, continuing that stable upward trend without any significant spikes. Sales tax revenue has remained largely flat over the past several years with modest year-to-year fluctuations. In both fiscal year 23 and 24, actual collections fell short of budgeted projections, indicating a gap between anticipated and realized performance. These shortfalls show that sales tax revenues can be unpredictable. It is affected by changes in the economy, how people choose to spend their money, especially as more spending shifts to services that are not taxed, and overall consumer confidence. Although slight increases are projected through fiscal year 27, overall growth is expected to remain constrained. These projections reflect cautious assumptions about the economic look and reinforce the need to for prudent revenue forecasting and fiscal planning. For charges for services, they're projected to decrease by approximately $387,000. This is primarily due to a reduction in revenue from the CA cannabis development agreement which accounts for the majority of the decline.

On the expenditure side, the same key pressures appear. Pension cost increases, buyer contract increases and re uh personnel cost and reduced offsetting revenues. These factors collectively contribute to the structural imbalance in the general fund. One of the most significant cost drivers is pension. It is important to note that pension costs include two main components. the annual cost of benefits earned by employees as well as payments toward the unfunded liability from prior from prior years. Looking at the historical trend, total pension costs have steadily ris uh risen from just over $5 million in fiscal year 22 to more than 8 million in the fiscal year 27 budget. The general fund, the general fund's share has grown from about $3.3 million to roughly 5.7 million. The general fund covers a large portion of this cost, paying up for about 70% of total pension expenses. And as you can see in the chart, that share has gradually increased over time, reaching 70% in both the fiscal year 26 and the fiscal year 27 budget. Um the trend line in your chart is indicating the share of the general fund that it is now paying into the pension cost. For fiscal year 27, pension costs increased by approximately 1 1.4 um million which represents a 22% rise compared to the prior year. This continues a trend of growing pension obligations.

Overall, this refle this reflects ongoing pressure on the budget as we continue to address both current benefit cost and long-term pension obligations. Our next slide, we've broken out pension cost and unfunded liability between our miscellaneous employees and our safety employees. Starting on the left with miscellaneous employees, you can see that both the normal pension cost and the unfunded acrew liability have generally increased over time. The unfunded liability makes up the larger share of this cost. Another way to put it is how it each pension dollar is is spent. So for every dollar we spend on pension cost for miscellaneous employees, about 42 cents go towards the normal pension costs and 58 cents go toward paying down the unfunded liability. And looking at this um at this relative to payroll, which is the trend line on the graph um with the green uh shadows, the green bars, for every dollar spent on wages for miscellaneous group, we need to add about 28 cents to cover pension benefits. On the right side, the safety employees, the breakdown is even more weighted to weighted towards toward p uh their past obligations. For every dollar we spend on pension costs, approximately 20 cents go towards the normal pension cost. Well, about 80 cents are going towards the unfunded liability. And when we compare the pension cost to payroll, the impact is significantly

higher. By fiscal year 27, for every dollar we spend on wages, about 96 cents must be added to fund pension benefits in our safety side. Overall, this slide highlights that that while both groups are seeing rising cost, the burden especially significant on the safety side and continues to be a major driver of long-term financial pressure. The fire services contract with the city of Modesto is also a major driver. For fiscal year 27, the contract increased by approximately $1.5 million or 19%. Continuing a consistent upward trend over the life of the agreement. Our personnel cost remain the largest expenditure category in the general fund and continue to be the primary cost driver. Within that total, police sworn personnel account for roughly 60% of overall cost while with police nonsworn which includes dispatch and code enforcement contributing to another 12 to 19% depending on the year. Fire services represented about 23% of personnel costs in fiscal year 22. series fire services transition to a contracted model through the Modesto Fire Department which is why th those costs are no longer reflecting in the following years in the chart. The remaining categories administration, recreation, and parks maintenance make up a smaller portion of the overall total. You will also notice a reduction in administration in fiscal year 27

which is driven by the transfer of certain functions into the new enterprise fund for solid waste um which is supporting those operations. This table is reflecting a summary of the major impacts to our general fund. And this is a highle summary of the general fund budget for fiscal year 27. Starting with the department requested budget, this represents the status quo budget, meaning it reflects the full cost to maintain current service levels, including known increases from fiscal year 26. On the revenue side, the status quo budget comes in at approximately 27.3 million, which is a slight decrease of about 260,000 or just under 1% from the fiscal year 26 adopted budget. On the expenditure side, the status quo budget totals about 32.9 million and this is an increase of roughly $3.4 $.4 million or about 12% over fiscal year 26. These increases are primarily driven by rising personnel costs, contracts, and ongoing operational expenses. At this status quo level, the city would be facing a projected deficit of approximately $5.6 million. To address this gap, staff identified and implemented cost-saving measures or balancing strategies which are reflected in the city manager's recommended budget. These strategies total about $3.2

million and do not impact any staffing levels at the moment. After app after applying these adjustments, expenditures are red are reduced to approximately 29.7 million, bringing the projected deficit down to about $2.4 million. At the bottom of the slide, you will see a breakdown of general fund cost. About 80% of expenditures are personnel related in which include the fire services contract and another 17% is allocated to operations and maintenance with the remaining 3% supporting internal services capital and trans uh capital improvement projects and transfers. Balancing strategies were applied to reduce the initial gap but a structural deficit still remains. To help address the the $5.6 million status quo deficit, staff identified a series of balancing strategies totaling approximately $3.2 million which are grouped into three main categories. The first one, it's one-time solutions totaling about $1.3 million and those are primarily coming from ISF um facility and IT reserves to provide an immediate relief to the general fund. Second, its ongoing reductions, also about $1.3 million, which include items like vacancy assumptions, employees, overtime adjustments, and updates to contracts and operational budgets to better align with actual spending. And third, technical adjustments

totaling $570,000 reflect cost allocation and methodology updates, particularly within fleet and facilities to reduce general fund impact. It is important to note that none of this strategies impact funded staffing levels. Now, let's walk through the general fund balance and where we are headed. We started fiscal year 24 with an ending fund balance of approximately $7 million based on fiscical year 25 adopted budget. We estimated using about $600,000 of fund balance followed by an additional $2 million of use in fiscal year 26. That brings our projected fiscical year 26 ending fund balance down to about $4.4 million. Looking ahead to fiscical year 27 and based on the city manager's recommended budget, we are projecting an additional $2.4 million use of fund balance. This would bring the fiscical year 27 ending fund balance to approximately $2 million. To put that into context, this represents about 6.6% of general fund expenditures, which is significantly below the city's target reserve levels of 18%. To meet the 18% threshold for fiscal year 27, the fund balance reserves should be at around 5.4 million. In the event of an economic downturn, the 18% in fund balance reserves would allow the city to meet its operational obligations for about two months.

In contrast, reserves totaling 6.6% of operating expenditures would not be able to cover expenses for a full month. On the right side of the slide, you can also see the audited fund balance trend over the past three years. While we while the fund balance has remained relatively stable, we have consistently used fund balance each year, indicating a structural imbalance between revenues and expenditures. Maintaining adequate reserves remains a key concern moving forward. Some of our takeaways, revenues remain relatively flat. Essential services are maintained in the city manager's proposed budget. We're facing a $2.4 million deficit. Fund balance is projected at 6.6% below the 18% target and the budget relies on one-time solutions to remain balanced. our next steps. Looking ahead, staff will um with today's workshop receive feedback from tonight's workshop budget workshop. We will continue refining department budgets. We will present any additional general fund cost-saving measures during proposed budget meeting scheduled for May 11, 2026. We will finalize our projections for the budget adoption meeting tentatively scheduled for June 8, 2026. And once our fiscal year 27 budget is approved, we will continue evaluating long-term sustainable solutions for the general fund. That concludes the presentation. At this time, we welcome any questions,

comments, or directions from the city council and members of the public. We'll now open this up to the public. Is there anyone in the chambers that would like to make a comment on this item? Now is the time. It's a word. John Warren's resident city of series. Kind of a sad day when I'm the only person here that represents the general public other than our fire personnel. couple three or four other people. It's uh it's it's not it's not good that the people don't have an opportunity to be here. Having the meeting at 5:30 when most people are still at work surely limits our ability to uh to get here as well as commuting from the Bay Area and and and other reasons. But a a meeting such as this should be held on a weekend such as a Saturday morning to give the general public more opportunity to have access to the budgeting of of their city uh funds. So a 6.6% below the 18% target. Does that mean that our general revenue emergency fund is going to be at 11.4%. Is that what that means? It means that our general fund reserves are at 6.6%. If

reserves are at 6.6%.

If we adopt the city manager's recommended budget with a $2.4 million deficit, we would we would be at 6.6% of the targets um applied by policy from the city council. That's quite a difference from where we were last year when the when the budget was accepted. I didn't know quite which way to interpret that. It says a fund balance of 6.6 and then in parenthesis it says below the 18% target. So I didn't know whether you minus that out or the reserves were actually at 6.6%. So you answered my question. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Warren. Is there anybody else that would like to make a comment? Please state your name. My name is Samuga. Um, you guys probably see me around here a little bit more and more often. I had a question. I seen something at the Sirrus Courier about um, uh, for the city council members, it was like $100,000 just for health insurance. And I want to see if that was actually factual if we're actually spending that money. finance. Thank you.

What we have budgeted for um in the city council's budget for health insurance, it totals about $47,000 a year and that is um that cost is spread out through different funds and the general fund picks up about $18,000.

Okay. I mean, look, I'm not against it, right? I think this is something that we need to adopt and I understand like we're we're facing a larger deficit, you know, and I'm a business owner. I got a construction company. I cover all of California and there's there's that time where like I'm maxing out my credit cards. I'm expanding. I'm having to pay employees. But if we don't meet, if we don't, you know, how do I explain it? I'm bad at speaking, but we have to give the city council members an incentive to be here. If not, we're just stepping back. right now we're we're looking at the city of series and you guys are expanding. We're annexing more cities. I'm trying to work with the Julian to expand and make a sports complex here. I mean, you guys are doing a good job and I understand everyone's stressed out because we're in a deficit. But like I said, even in business, sometimes you need to expand. Sometimes you got to hit those credit cards and we're going to get out of it the same thing as Modesto, right? They said they were going to go bankrupt and look at them now. And I think that's where we're at right now. I think it was more of a comment than a question, I guess. But appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Is there anybody else? I'll say my name for the record. Galen Guzman. So, um I just want to piggy back off of uh what Mr. Lauren said about uh the lack of uh public um you know input. You know if you look at the city of Modesto they have like a lot of budget workshops you know and there's like several dates you know um so Monday April 20th Tuesday April 21st Wednesday April 22nd Thursday April 23rd and they're all at various times. The first one is from 5 to 8. The second one is 8:30 to 3 pm and then the uh third one 8:30 to 3 pm and 8:30 to 12 pm. So it's it's quite you know various time to to make sure like oh if I work a 95 I can make the uh the first one on Monday April 20th. You know what I mean? So uh this isn't isn't the first time that this happens. Uh I remember attending the the last budget workshop and Mr. Warren said that many years ago, if I'm not mistaken, these uh conversations with the public used to take place back in February. We're like in May, almost May. So, this is really disappointing to be honest. And then um yeah uh one of the big things that stuck out to me at the budget workshop last last year was that the police um budget fund was really high, you know, and then when I asked uh the old city manager a few questions, he got really blushed and red. And then um one one of the things I want to mention is that I uh I requested to do a police ride along a couple of weeks ago. Um, and I spoke with Chief and I still haven't heard back. You know, the

back of the application says they'll get back to me in about a week. No offend, you know. So, it's just like little things like that. It's It's very frustrating. You're here to serve the people, you know. And I what you said to me is like I could submit my application and it you you basically said it wasn't going to be approved, but I could turn it in anyways. I'm not That's what you said, right? We try to focus on the budget today. That's off topic, sir.

Okay. Anyways, I um I would like more money to go towards parks and recreation. Okay. And uh youth development. Um if we spend more money on policing and stuff, I feel like that's uh downstream thinking, not upstream thinking. Um where we could if we invest in our youth, you know, our youth is our future, not our police officers. And that's that's a fact, you know. So yeah, you can roll your eyes. It's okay. Um he's refraining and make sure that you are being in compliance for our decor, sir.

Okay. Uh what else was I going to say? Um yeah, so the lack of transparency. So one of the barriers that people um might have is child care. you know, I attended a a valley improvement project uh workshop and one of the barriers for parents is child care. I don't have any children, but you know, I congratulated the directors that hosted that event, that conference because not many people have uh you know, free child care. Uh you know, they they might not be able to make it to the to the meeting, you know. So I would recommend you know in the future going forward to maybe have someone that could uh provide free child care services while citizens of series could attend this important meeting you know um like Mr. Warren said there's only a few of us, you know, it's the same people, you know. Um, so yeah, I'm just like very disappointed. Um, and uh, there hasn't been any talk about where we are financially in the like budget, you know, uh, for the year or any staffing levels. I was hoping to see that up here. U, but there's nothing. Um, yeah, I I would like to see how much of theus on like the salary increases for the like last 5 years. uh Mr. Anyways, I and I'm for like a forensic audit, you know, but we have two plus, you know, two four and three against. So, I think that would clear up a lot of questions. Um, for the measure H, I know we're talking about the general fund, but I took a look at the last agenda uh meeting minutes and uh it's in the negative, you know, and so I have a question for f the finance department. So let's say you projected XYZ amount and we we're not even halfway there and there's a 1.1 million deficit. What what happens then?

We would have to review the what was approved in the um in the budget uh for that fund. Sometimes some deficits are approved because it is meant to for for that year to use um reserves. Okay. And then also includes more Spanish translation for people. 66% of citizens

speak Spanish only. So gracias. Can we please have the next person come up please? Seeing none, anybody on Zoom? Oh, actually one more. Sorry about that. I didn't see your answer. State your name.

Mayor and city council. My name is Nelson Gomez. I'm the president of SMBU. I had two questions for the finance director. I see you have a budget deficit of 2.4 million. But I I see that there was an increase in the fire contract of about over 1.5 million. it was quite flat in the last couple years. Uh why is there such a tremendous increase in that contract?

The fire contract, it was it was signed a five when we enter this fire contract, we sign a 5-year contract. So, we're coming about the end of that 5-year contract and we're going into negotiations for a new contract. That's what you see the the new increases or the new um expenditures updated with the cost of today for fire services. Thank you. Uh also I noticed that you have a decrease in the service revenue of about 420,000 based on the fact primarily because of the cannabis uh revenue is going to be down about 400,000. Correct.

That is correct. So, between the increase in the U fire department contract of 1.5 million and the decrease in the 400,000 in the cannabis, that's a $1.9 million deficit. Correct. That is correct. That's about 80% of your deficit. Correct. Your deficit is scheduled to be two 2.4 million, right? Our our deficit was scheduled to be 5.6 million.

Okay. the um the increases between pension, fire services, and um and and contracted services is what made us that put us into that $5.6 million. From there, we have implemented balancing strategies and that's where we have the 1.4 the $2.4 million deficit. We still have and you yes, you can say that that out of that $2.4 $4 million. One of the major increases also it's coming from our fire services department contract.

But how much flexibility do you have in terms of the contract with the fire department for example? I I would imagine very little. Correct. Under negotiations and I would defer to city manager's fire chief. City manager. I know that we do have uh the fire department here. we can discuss only internally when it comes to the budget but not discuss anything on negotiations would there is there any particular comments the Modesto fire department would like to make at the moment

I'm just I'm just asking I'm sorry I'm this is the first workshop I I attend so I'm I'm trying to get this information first time so the second thing is obviously in your pension funds increase that's something that you're already committed to is that correct that is correct those are part of our employee personnel cost. So, as I see the budget that you've proposed and the documentation you have shown tonight is that the majority of your increase and the majority of deficit is in commitments that you've already made that are beyond the control of the city council to do much to change. Correct. And

we are asking for guidance on on where we want to go as as far as after this workshop. We're looking for input and guidance on and where the city council would like us to go after that. Yes,

I understand. I I I understand that some of these commitments were made many years ago and so forth and and that the city council now has to live with some of the situations that uh have been made in prior years. uh I just want to make sure that uh we understand exactly what's causing the problem rather than misunderstanding it and then uh trying to cure it with a band-aid when in reality it might need a surgery. But uh what I'm saying is that uh perhaps uh other workshops will find solutions on what to do for the coming year 2027. Hopefully to be able to bring this more into balance or be able to we either have to increase the revenues or decrease the expenses. I guess the city has the same problems as private business because you're a service type of concern, I would imagine. And so my only um uh comment at the last comment is to be hopefully city council will be able to give us a little bit more information and the the future of how we can solve this problem. So hopefully the health of the general fund and the reserves for the city of uh series will be in a healthy position. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anybody else? Uh, good evening, Mayor and City Council. Uh, Tony Madreville. Um, I just had a couple of questions about your uh, sales tax and apologies. I walked in a little late. Um I worked in I think towards the tail end of the property tax no the sales tax slide. Um so based on the presentation I I get the sense that the two major sources of revenue are property taxes and sales taxes. Um if if uh if either staff or or if staff can answer this later. Um what is uh as a percentage of the general fund? What's the uh transient occupancy tax aka the hotel tax uh you know bring in per year? Because I know it was increased uh it was in 2015 by measure E from 5% to 10%. Um, but just, you know, to give you a context, uh, I know that there's other cities in California, mind you, they are major destination cities that have a higher hotel tax than, uh, for example, 10%. Um but I think we mustn't ignore the fact that you know we are one of the gateways for example to the motherload yuseite and all these places and places like uh places like series uh you know are still a bargain uh in compared to staying you know at other cities. Um, also had a question about the um, I guess for lack of a better word, the

savings, if you will, from the fire contracts that the city has realized over the year. Because my recollection was that one of the benefits of entering a fire contract was that because Modesto Fire Department basically is able to scale their operation and help spread out cost that it would end up, you know, resulting in savings for the city. Wanted to find out the savings that year over year, I guess we're looking at the the period from fiscal year 22 to the proposed fiscal year 27 budget. Is there a figure on that like what the annual savings has been? Uh because you know you painted a clear picture about the expected uh increase uh what is it 1 point something million in the fire contract. And so if if staff could speak to that um and if it doesn't happen today it's okay. Um I feel confident that you you might have more budget hearings um after today. So those are uh two of my other questions. And then I had another question is in in terms of revenue and forgive my ignorance, but does series have a utility users tax or was that done away with? I honestly I I can't remember the different places, you know, throughout the county where I go shopping over the years where I recall that they were collecting petitions in front of like the Walmart to say do away with the utility tax and stuff like that. I'm not sure if seriesir was one of those places where they were able to eliminate it, you know, through a ballot measure or if Siri still has a utility tax.

We do have the utility tax. What what percent is the utility tax, please? We would we we'll get that if Okay. Okay. I'll hold my horses.

And again, I'm feel confident you might have more budget hearings. Hint hint. Um so, utility tax. And then just wanted to plant the seed and say um you know you guys have seen what your neighbors you know next door in Modesto have done with uh you know their effort aka their initiative you know on the ballot to go to the voters and say we need more investment from the community and we're asking you the voters to consider an increase in the sales tax. And they successfully went to the voters, they educated them, and there was concerned citizens and stakeholders that came together and they successfully passed measure H. And now they have a once in sales tax, which is able to do so much. I I don't have to tell you about the benefits of, you know, basically pursuing another revenue stream to help the city meet the needs and enjoy the quality of life, have people enjoy the quality of life that, you know, every series resident and small business deserves. That's about it. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Is there anybody else in the audience like to make a comment? Anybody on Zoom? There are no hands raised on Zoom and there were no emails received. Thank you very much. We go ahead and close the public comment and we bring this item back to the city council for any comments, questions. Mr. Mayor, can I make a fivem minute request? Uh recess request. Sure. Let's go ahead and go into fiveminute recess. Thank you.

If everyone can please be seated, we will start in just a moment. Everybody please take a seat and welcome back to the workshop. We have a button press by Vice Mayor Daniel Martinez. Go ahead, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We're picking back up uh from closing of public comments just to discuss this. Just wanted to confirm we're we're discussing this now. That is correct. We are now coming back to city council for our comments, questions, and recommendations.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh first, I just wanted to thank uh interimm city manager for, you know, hitting the ground running for meeting with all the department heads and for all of staff and the department heads for getting together and putting in this work. I'm sure it had been a process months before. I'm sure with our our past city manager before he retired. I would definitely recommend maybe looking into doing these sooner in the year. Um, you know, I know last year, probably November, October, I made a request to have a updated presentation from city manager on staffing levels and where we were. Uh, getting an information like that would probably be beneficial to meetings like these. That way, we know what departments have vacancies, if people are retiring soon, just the financial outcomes of that. Um, and then I just wanted to to ask a question. I think last year when we had our budget meeting, we had a question for our city attorney who wasn't present at the time and I think we had made a request to have the city attorney available for these meetings. Um, so I wanted to remind that that that was something that had been requested. Um, with that again I I appreciate staff and I appreciate city manager and uh that's all I have. uh in city manager. I did reach out to the city attorney and they actually had a meeting meeting today with another city, but let's make sure that they can adjust for our next two meetings and if we decide to do another workshop.

I've made a note. Thank you, mayor. Thank you very much. We'll go to Serena. Councilwoman,

thank you, mayor. Uh bear with me. I do have uh I have a lot of concerns. I have questions and I just have some thoughts. Um, but the first thing I'll start off with is, you know, yeah, I think Mr. Warren might have said it's a sad day or something, but it's very disappointing to look at this. And, um, I never want to restrict any services to our community. Um, you know, there's benefits to contracts that we have and all of this has to be looked at. And I think over the years there's been some lack in maybe planning in the city. um things haven't been addressed, maybe some hard decisions haven't been made. Um but here we are today and we need to move forward and we need to make decisions together and and do what's best for our community. Um so my first question for finance and thank you again for the presentation. Um it was put together quite well. So I do appreciate that. But my first question is last year there was mention of some ARPA funding being returned. It was about $200,000. Can you clarify for me if that funding is actually still available?

Thank you. At at this moment, we are scheduled to spend all of our ARPA fundings that have been obligated and committed um through projects and um for fiscal year 27. For fiscal year 27, we have funding to pay for the code enforcement um one full-time and one part-time officers through December of 2026. So with those expenses coming in for ARPA, we are scheduled to fully fully spend those funds. Thank you. So this is one example of why I've requested for or I did a referral a while back for a forensic financial audit. Um, unfortunately, we've had turn we've had turnover in this city. We've had different finance directors. We've had uh different city managers. Now, we have a new interim city manager. And this isn't their fault. They've inherited a lot of what's going on. Um, but the ARPA funding is a perfect example. We were told one thing last year and now it's something else. Um, but my next uh one of the suggestions that I'm going to throw out, I did throw it out last year. Um I think that as council members we need to evaluate what is in our own budget. Um all of the departments had to look at their budgets and possibly cut certain things they were doing and two items that I'm going to suggest is the professional development funds. Uh it was something I suggested last year. I'm also going to suggest the medical benefits and uh question for the finance director for some clarification. The $47,000 that you mentioned, is that currently just the amount that's being spent for council members who accept the uh medical benefits?

That is correct.

So, if we were all accepting the medical benefits, how much is that amount? it would potentially come up come up to the $95,000 to $100,000 mark. So almost $100,000 that us as council members could be taking from this budget for um for medical benefits. Now, I know there's been some concerns and also some support for having these benefits for the council members, kind of an incentives to come in and and serve on the council and serve our community. But when it comes to public service, this is something that we do out of our heart. This is not something that we should be looking for essentially a full-time job. It's not a full-time job in the city of Series. This is a part-time job. Um part-time workers don't even get benefits. So, I I don't think that's fair. I think we need to make some adjustments here. Um, and I know that this is a hard conversation to have, but it's something that we need to do in this city because as council members, we also need to contribute and give back to this budget. And then additionally, last year I did I had a referral for the transient occupancy um tax committee. I think it's critical that we look into that and bring it back. I think there could be benefits for that tax to be maybe allocated to certain certain items through the year, certain expenditures. Um, we need to look at our our Airbnb and vacation rental tax. Is that all being incorporated into the toot? Um, that's something that's going to be critical going forward. We also have our legal services. Uh, looks like we're requesting a reduction of $200,000. However, last year I recall us having to pull from the reserves for an adjustment

for legal services. So, I can't imagine that that won't happen again. Uh, legal services is is quite expensive. So, I would really like to evaluate how much we ultimately spend and and thankfully council member Vieier has already mentioned uh to have a review of of these services. Um, additionally, uh, police department overtime cost. That's another one that if we don't have the officers on the streets, we don't have the dispatchers, somebody calls in, someone's out on leave, um, we have trainees. I don't think that is that is that reduction really going to stick. So, I can see potentially us asking for an amendment again and uh needing those those funds again. Uh we can't go without police services. That is something that's critical. We have to have a law and order in this city. We have businesses here. We have residents that want to feel safe. There's there's too much going on. So, we need to maintain those services. And it's unfortunate that we still have services. I'm sorry, positions that have been cut. We haven't even brought those back. Um, if we include all of our unfunded positions, I think we would be in a in a bigger deficit right now. So, that is extremely concerning. One of the thoughts I had uh this evening as I was listening to this is um just looking at our our current um community ser comm community commu this community center looking at the the services that we provide here um I'm not sure if you know there's any any cost adjustments there how many what hours were open how many staff members all of that um and our rec park parks and recreation team does such an amazing job throughout the year with all of the events that we host. So, in order to

maintain that um in looking at the budget, I I want to make sure that we don't lose anything for the for our youth because we don't have a lot to offer already and there's more that we should offer. So, I do want to make sure we don't lose that. So, I don't know if there's any adjustments that, you know, still can be made there, whether it's hours that this center's open. Um, I I don't have the exam answer to that right now, but it's just something that we need to look at so we don't lose other services from parks and wreck. And lastly, um I don't do we have an amount of cuz we talk about police uh department overtime costs. Do we have an amount for like streets overtime costs or public works?

We can we can bring that back um that information down.

Okay. I think that would be helpful. Um looking at the overall picture of hours of employees is always important. Where can where can we adjust things? Where can employees flex their time if needed? If they come in on overtime one day, can they flex their time another day? Um, that's going to be something to really look into as we move forward so we don't incur those overtime costs. Is there a potential for anybody's hours to be adjusted, days off to be adjusted, you know, one half comes in Monday through Thursday, one half comes in uh Tuesday through Friday. Um there's a lot of things to consider there so we can maybe reduce the overtime. And then I'd also like to ensure that we we probably need to pause any non-critical projects. Um I feel like we did incur consulting fees last year. We don't have a community development manager or community development director and I know with the projects we had going with copper trails and other things um we needed consulting services but can we evaluate the cost of those versus uh potentially just bringing back a development manager if we do need one um so we can have consistent service to the public. Um, and I think for now that's all I have to share. Um, you know, I I do think we need to do better and bringing meetings more frequently for the public when it comes around to budget season. We have lacked that in the last couple years. Um, so I can't disagree, but it's really important that we start getting the city involved. It's important once again that we update our strategic plan. I've been asking that for that since last January. Um, and there's been no movement. So, I look forward to seeing that so that way we all have a vision together and we get our community involved. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman. Uh, I have a couple of questions. Uh, Pierre, if you don't mind, I seen that you pushed your button. Um, so I would like to start off by saying that, you know, the budget pressure appears to be coming from ongoing operating costs, especially in labor, pensions, fire, and public safety related obligations. It is also al also important to remind the public that the government budgeting at this these are projected numbers and the fiscal year 202627 but some actual revenue streams are not fully received until January about February. Is that correct? Okay. So I do have some direct uh questions but also some some actual solutions. Uh for example this is on the IT cont IT department. uh what if you don't necessarily have the numbers now what would it look like if we were to contract out IT services instead of continuing the the current structure uh the total current in-house IT cost uh the total cost of contracting out any one-time transition costs or any annual savings or added expenses whether the change would improve the general fund position or not as today I you know looking at the chart we see that There is some reserve funding that you that IT department has had for a while and how how long have they had that funding for? It's about is it 1.5 million?

Um we are using $500,000 of it reserves and we have come up with that number as we are are closing on our fisc year audits. So, so far we know we have numbers through fiscal year 24. We will be looking at fiscal year 25 shortly. My question was what's in their reserves? $500,000 is what we're using. We're proposing to use and that's how much they have in reserves. How much they have in reserves? Okay. And the IT department, what's the cost right now for the department?

800,000 and 500,000 or is it just 800,000? India are using 500,000. One second. We actually have some interactive um technology here. So Sonia is this number as I'll wait.

So you're asking this question. Our total um IT budget is $1.3 million. However, um that is broken up between salaries for the IT department and the uh projects and uh services um that they provide. So if I look at the salaries you just do salaries are budgeted to $740,000. That is the total for the for it. Yes, that's correct.

740,000. Okay. Moving on to questions about police overtime and frozen positions. Right now, currently we have five frozen frozen positions. Correct. In the police department. In the policeing department. That is correct. And just so the so the public knows what are those five frozen positions. Uh one captain position, one sergeant position, and three police officers. And out of those five positions, how many of those positions would actually impact the general fund? Uh they all would. And we also have uh three uh dispatchers that

okay are frozen.

And out of those positions, which of those positions would incur overtime? the three police officer positions. So I yeah the sergeant position. Okay. So what my thoughts are is instead of you know trying to reduce overtime which is obviously we know when it comes to public safety we shouldn't put a number on overtime. it it's just not something that I know we can budget for it but those costs can come at any moment especially if there's a SWAT mission that comes out of we're trying to you know chase some bad guys and obviously we have to pay for some overtime right so instead of trying to focus on that overtime we could possibly fill these positions and could cut down our overtime overall several years out so to the finance department I want to see what those what that would look like if we were to fill all those positions compared to the overtime that we're spending now because I was see chief you had to adjust you know with what you had obviously and I'd like to touch on another subject. So let's talk about the community development position. Now we currently have that position. It is an unfunded position. It is not a frozen position and I believe that is it is needed. That position is a leadership position and currently on our website we have a job position that opened up and I believe that position is for a for planning. Correct. Is that correct? Finance.

Yes. What is the title of that job? It's senior It's a senior planner. And off the top of your head, what is the senior planner right now? What is their salary? Our wages are estimated at the topstead 101 $101,000 a year.

So I would suggest bringing this back to to council so that we can see what that community development director position would look like filled. And this is an item I think that we should include in our budget. And after we focus on the leadership positions, then go ahead and focus on the other positions. We we do have a contract right now with somebody who's facilitating copper trails, which I do believe is very important. And once we fill that position, we can actually go back and see if the contract is even going to be necessary moving forward. I think that would be an important option. You know, my overall concern is not just where we where cuts are being made, but whether we are making the right operational decisions. If vacancies are driving overtime, we should examine filing positions. If contracts are filling long-term gaps, we should examine whether those are permanent staffing is is more whether that permanent staffing is efficient. And if reserves exist, but we are not being strategically we're not strategically discussing these, then staff should explain to how we how they fit into our city's long-term financial future. And I I just really want to say that I think that we will have to make some very difficult decisions, but I will not support any reductions or cutting any costs for public safety. And I know that the public has mentioned that that is one of the largest percentage of a lot of cities. And as I can as I've seen in the last 5 years, Stanos County has moved in the right direction for public safety. As we see in Modesto, crime is going down and what happens in Modesto in Turlock reflects what happens in the city of series. If anything, we need to continue to invest in public safety. And I think by unfreezing those five positions, we can make that happen. And you know, the suggestion for the IT department that we we need to realize that there is a new age of technology and the city of Series is lacking

thereof in that technology implementation. I see it all the time and I think that other cities are moving forward. We've most definitely have bumped up our technology when it comes to license plate reader cameras and I know the chief of police has mentioned a real-time crime center which invol involves uh technology but we need to assess and we need to make tough decisions and lastly I will say that uh you know parks for Rex is a very small department. I don't think we should be taking anything away from parks for Rex. I just want to reiterate what the council member Tero said and obviously we have done a lot in the last 6 years bringing new recreational programs, the hoopsters program. Uh, I'm sure there's an item coming up for about the swim program that I announced during the state of city address and there's a lot of things that we as a community want to build for our youth as a coach and I think that there shouldn't be no limits in that and I wish that we had more money to throw at the parks and reccks department but they are a very small department overall. Those are some of my suggestions and things that I would like to see at the next next uh meeting. I know this is not the appropriate time, but hopefully the council will make some suggestions about whether or not we need to bring back another suggestion for another workshop. I think the public has said it numerous times. Uh Serena has mentioned this many times as well and I do support that as long as that it it does go with um our scheduled time frame and it looks like we have about a month and a half. Correct, city manager?

Before prior adoption or final adoption at the June 8th meeting. Yes. Okay, sounds good. And those are going to be my suggestions for now. And I do value the input from the city council's continued discussion. And I know Serena, you had pressed your button, but I'm going to give uh Ros Linda an opportunity. Is that okay? Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman. Thank you. Um wanted to just first ask some questions and some of this may be to Delilah because a lot of it's going to deal with the union contracts. Um Serena mentioned about flex. Are we able to do that under the current union contracts? When it comes to I think that's Luna's contract, Park City streets, are they able to flex their schedule in event like a major storm or something?

Yes, we do have the ability to flex schedules for certain bargaining units and have them alternate their work schedule so that we could reduce overtime costs.

And then I I have a lot of questions. I'm sorry, but I try to write it down. Okay. So, with the police overtime, I know when I first started on the council, we were working three shifts, and I believe now we're down to two, which requires everyone to be working every overtime on every shift. And I believe that's union negotiated. Correct. So, there's it makes it really difficult to reduce overtime, especially now that we've switched from three shifts to two shifts. So, in their current agreement, they do receive overtime for any hours worked over their regularly scheduled shift, which is 11 hours. So yes, we are paying 1 hour of overtime per day per officer.

Are we able to have we thought or lit or they even open to the idea of going back to what we were doing last time which minimized the amount of overtime but still kept staffing levels at an appropriate level for public safety purposes.

We haven't been in discussions with um the bargaining unit but I would not want to discuss that further at this point just because we are in ongoing conversations. No, I appreciate. I just didn't Again, we're just throwing ideas out. So, that's why I was just like I know in the past when I started, we were in a different level and we had less overtime because we had different type of shifts set up and we didn't have um we still had the same amount of offers officers on the street, but we had less overtime. Um I know we are currently paying for officers or um I guess cadets in the academy and we're paying them hourly wages while they're still in the academy. Are we continuing to do that? cuz I noticed some of them weren't even finishing the field training process which means we paid them and then they didn't finish training which to me seems like at least I that's what I've heard. I didn't know if that was true or not. Is that not true? Are we not paying them while they're in school?

So we are paying them while they're attending the basic academy training but we're paying them at a reduced rate and we've had a very high success rate with them passing their post and becoming police officers. So, it's been a very successful program and we've only had one individual who was unable to finish due to an injury.

Okay. I I didn't know why, but I didn't really Okay. So, um are we going to be continuing that or how is it fixed our staffing issues with the police which I guess ultimately resulted in some of the high overtime rates that we were seeing? So right now we are full. Um we're 47 for 47 officers. Three of them are in the police academy right now. Uh three are still in training. Uh one of the trainees just cleared his field training on Friday. So, um, that's a conversation if, uh, down the road if we want to continue to keep them in the academy because we know that we're going to have retirements or people might leave and it takes almost a year to find these recruits and put them in the academy. So, that's a conversation we'll have uh, ongoing.

No problem. And does that um, come out of the general fund or is there split between different funds since we're specifically talking about the general fund tonight?

It is a general fund. Okay. Um, I know I think we kind of all concur here on the council regarding the planning. I think our contracts this year for the different planning, I think we had two or three different planning consultants. I think they exceeded what we were paying our last planning director. And I would like to also see what the costs were, realized actual costs of having someone versus the three. I think we have three contracts now for planning. Um, and the next one which I've already mentioned and Serena also mentioned regarding our legal fees. Um, that has been significant to our budget and um, I'd like to see what we can do to try to if there's a way to mitigate some of the expenses we're having and if that's actually going to be realized or if that's just something we put in writing because I think that's a concern for mine. Um, also on here I saw we have the contract for the grant writer. are we even utilizing those services and what have they done for us? Because I don't see too many grants coming forward for us to approve that have been done by them. Um I don't know if we have anything processed. I don't know if they're really advocating for us cuz I'm not hearing that they are. And that's a concern of mine cuz we're not seeing any of those funds for what we're paying them every month coming forward to us. And so I just I I have a concern about that again this year as I have in prior years. it for now. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Jim Casey. A lot of things that were was going to bring up have already been brought up, so won't duplicate those. Uh but I will stress that u you know since I've been on the council uh I've asked that we have quarterly reviews of the budget and since I've been on the council we haven't had any. I think that's an important thing to find out where we are and where we're headed and what changes we can make midstream. Uh the other thing is that I've talked about a lot of times uh is the sales tax that is not being collected uh regularly. You know u a good example I thought I brought up but it didn't seem to penetrate anybody's attention at our Christmas tree lane event. Uh, I purchased, I don't know, $50, $60 worth of processed food from a vendor and no sales tax was correct collected. I followed up to see if they had a city license and they didn't. So, that those are nickel and dimes things, but they add up in a hurry. Uh, the other thing that I think our city lacks is the collection process of the thousands of dollars that we're not collecting from justified dues that we already have in place, fees. We just somebody doesn't pay something, nothing happens. Some of you may or may not know that

when I first came on the city council, my wife had a stroke and she was a very important person in our business. And one of the things that she was in charge of was all the different city tax uh permits that we have in place. Well, we didn't know where they were. And the only reason we found out about them is we got done noses from cities to include the city of series. So you know again that's nickel and dime stuff but it's so important. But the most important thing is public participation. Last year I did some erroneous mailings and we had some pretty good turnouts and this year I wasn't able to do that. But we can spend that amount of money at city funds for different activities. And and if we did that, the the citizens, you know, the way it works is theoretically the city manager works for us and all the staff people work for him and we're kind of in charge. But the truth of the matter is the citizens and taxpayers of series are in charge and they should be here tonight in great numbers uh to listen to how maybe they're not critical of it of the way we're running our city but at least they would understand a better way. So, I I would stress that we form a committee of citizens to be part of the budget process. It's a little late this year, but and get that committee going this year so that next year citizens can have a greater input into the money that's spent. That's

really all I have to say. But again, so many things were already spoken and I appreciate the uh the effort of my fellow council persons. I almost said the wrong word. Thank you very much, council member. And I do have Vice Mayor Martinez, and I do see your address as well, Councilwoman. Vice Mayor, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just had a question for for Joshua Public Works. uh during storms, any of the on call employees that come in and respond to those uh events, do they have the opportunity to flex that time off or is that uh not presented to them at this moment?

Um right now, right now, anytime that comes in for storm operations, it's usually overtime. Uh there's always an option for people to flex. We just don't know when these, you know, storm events are going to be happening. Uh I know going into fiscal year 27 um the streets operators the the streets budget is not going to be uh impacted by the general fund at all. Currently this year it's only 10% impact impacted by the general fund. Um so uh and it's mostly funded out of the the wastewater through through storm. So it is something to look at but going into fiscal year 27 it won't impact the general fund at all.

Thank you sir. Councilwoman Ottero. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to get clarification on um code enforcement because I know there was some funding from ARPA and um either chief or our finance director, but how many can you confirm again how many code enforcement officers we have full-time and part-time?

That information. Thank you. So I have oops okay I think I got it code enforcement um we have three code enfor code enforcement officers approved in fiscal year 26 and one secretary funded through ARPA we have um two part-times employees sorry how many were funded through ARPA again two part-time code enforcement officers and one full-time.

One full-time. So, then we would drop to two full-time after ARPA. Okay. And are we already um chief, are we already looking at what that might look like once the ARPA funding goes away? I think it was our hopes that we're going to keep all three full-time and the secretary. And I'm not sure if that was put in the budget that way or not. That'd be a finance question. Okay. um for a finance team. Is that do we have a way to try to retain those positions?

In this budget, we are not making any staffing impacts. So, they are being the two part-time officers and the one full-time officer is being paid through fiscal year 27. So, through the end of June 30, 2027. Um we're just paying for half of the year with ARPA. and this second half of the year they're coming back to the general fund and getting paid through the general fund.

Thank you. And then um I you know mayor had a suggestion about IT services and um that's that's a large part to the city is the IT functions and yes technology is expanding but I want us to keep in mind that specifically when it comes to the police department there's a lot of critical critical functions there and uh we want to make sure that however we work our IT services um first off those people are cleared for a background. Um, that's going to cost the city money. They are not going to be allowed to go in and out of your guys' systems without having that. Um, additionally, we want to make sure that they're available to assist. Um, so there is going to be a lot to consider there uh when it comes to IT services. Thank you.

Thank you very very much. Rosinda, you have some additional comments. trying to get all of this going as we all talk a lot of ideas pop into my mind and questions. Um I guess with code enforcement I just want to confirm now they have their own supervisor sergeant correct and does that hit the general fund as well? No there's no supervisor and code enforcement. There is a uh 5% incentive to one of the lieutenants that supervises them.

Perfect. That's what I was checking. And then um I do have to agree with Mr. Casey because although I haven't seen the quarterly report for a while when it came to tax generating businesses in town and where we were, the last one we got was second quarter and I did see there were some businesses that kind of surprised me that weren't on the list. Um I'm not going to name them obviously, but there was one where we have four businesses of four of them located in town. their lines in the drive-thru are always busy, but yet they weren't even list on the top 25 where there's another fast food business that's only open limited hours and they were on the top 25. So, I was just kind of surprised how um one of those businesses wasn't on there. So, it really made me think that maybe they aren't paying the tax revenue that they're collecting into the city. And so, I do agree with Mr. Casey that I I am concerned about that as well. when we switched over and I know I made a referral a while back so I'm not going to you know bring that part of it up but under the new tax business under the current new organizations handling the sales or business licenses they're now issuing quarterlies instead of annual which is in our municipal code and they charge us each time they issue a business license so now instead of paying the company once a year we're now paying them quarterly to issue that business license that should be once a year according to our municipal code so I do still have concerns about them ext the additional charges. Um, I didn't know where we were when it came to the contract. I know before Sam left, there was a review or an RFP that went out for or needed to go out for the security that closed and locks up the parks. And I haven't seen that com contract come back. I don't know if that contract is integrated into our budget or if we have something else in place when it comes to locking up the parks in the evenings. And I don't know what other services they provide. And I don't see my here to help me.

He's online. Um I don't know if I don't know if it was included in fiscal year 27, but uh currently that contract is still in place. Um they they have to um patrol all the parks that have restrooms and then um there's they also have to go at a certain amount of times to all the other parks. So, uh, we can pull up the contract and look through that. I haven't really got the chance to look at that either. That was in the topic of discussion with the previous city manager before he left and, uh, it was kind of left at that point.

Correct. I believe there was some concerns, I guess, is the best way regarding the billing and what we were being build and how we were being build. And so, that's a concern of mine, especially if they've been over billing. I don't know if I necessarily want to continue a contract um or if there's even lower rates that we can get for a contract to lock up the parks um because I know we've had a few issues or continued issues with them and so I didn't know where we were with that and if that was in the budget as well or if we had something else in place. We can confirm that we have budgeted for security services in the uh parks department.

Thank you. And then I know we briefly touched on the fire and fires here. Um I know the contracts and I just want to confirm my understanding of the contract. It's based on the number of calls that you guys respond to regard not necessarily the stations cuz I know in my district and I usually have 10 that responds to part of it and 15 and then 19 covers north part of series and east is by 18 and then 15 is usually downtown and half of my district. Um but it's not necessarily by station. It's based by calls, correct? And what was your exact question about the contract? The contract is based on calls, not necessarily.

No, we don't really base the contract on call volume.

So, the contract is because I guess there's a lot of different components. I guess I don't quite understand the contract then and what we're paying for um if it's not based on call volume. Well, I'm trying to figure out where you got that information, but uh no, the it's it's about the cost that that um comes with being your fire department. So, um we don't really um use the call volume in estimating that cost. Uh unfortunately, we aren't immune to the same things that you are with your um pension and UAL and um we're dealing with the same issues. So that does um drive the cost of the contract up unfortunately.

Okay. And um I if again because apparently you know a lot of stuff circulates in the committee and you don't exactly know 100% of what's truthful and what's just circulating comments. Um is it true that um station one was going to be remodeled and some of those were going to come to 19 and then 19 was going to services were going to be impacted? No, we uh we are in the process of remodeling station one um with 19 uh as we assume that contract. Um we do have the option to um house it in different places. We haven't made that decision, but all those decisions are always made and um we keep in mind making sure that we don't reduce the level of service to those areas that uh those engines service. So, um, we've just moved to a new AVL dispatch system which grabs the closest engine when the call comes in. So, all of those things are being figured in our, um, plan for continuing to deliver a higher level of service for those areas and especially in that um, area with station 19.

Thank you, Council Member Casey. One thing I forgot was the back to sales tax. You know, it was brought to my attention has been corrected at least for one of the businesses, but you know, as we all know, live with the fact that we're the city of Series, but the other side of Hatch Road is a Modesto address. So, it gets confusing. So, we've had businesses uh that are in that area that are in the city of series, but think they're supposed to be paying the uh Modesto sales tax. And another thing, um again, I harped on this more times than I care to. Maybe this will be the last time. Uh this morning on the news I saw where Loi was thinking about limiting the number of vendors and they had a couple of vendors uh interviewing what they thought about it and didn't pay attention to what their answers were. I did pay attention that was clearly posted so the public could see their city license the health thing the uh board of equalization and the fourth document and I can't tell you what it was but I know that the uh three vendors that I visit you'd have to ask for that information. So I I think again it it's and it seems like you know people think that I'm trying to do away with that business. I'm not. My son and most of my friends

really enjoy that. It's just that they they need to be doing the right thing. That's all. And again that's that's revenue. That's not expenses. We've been talking about cutting things. That's just simple revenue. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Casey. Finance Department. I just wanted to go over the budget general fund items 1 through 14 once again just so the public sees this and hears this. So uh number one the funding relief from ISF facility reserves that's for it. So what what is what is the reason why you guys came up with the idea of using facility reserves in this instance? through our review and um and now with fiscal year 24 audit completed we have realized um 8 not 800,000 we have realized that the facility reser um facility fund it holds reserves in the amount of about $900,000. So, we are proposing that we use 800,000 of those reserves to um provide a one-time relief to the general fund. And the idea behind it is my understanding is that in prior years, there was a methodology used for the way that we were collecting monies or we were collecting the revenue for all of this internal service funds. we would budget $100,000 and we would collect $100,000 from the departments where in reality the true cost of this departments or services may have been 80,000 may have been 95,000. So through the years by using the methodology that we were using

collecting funding from the departments based on budget and not on actuals these funds have realized some um reserves and that's the reasoning behind and that's why we feel comfortable proposing this one-time um relief to the general fund. We have changed this methodology I believe with fiscal year 25 and we no longer um charge departments for services on a budgeted uh on a budgeted basis. We are charging based on actuals. If the department if our facilities IT and fleet spend $100,000 we charge the departments $100,000 even if that comes below budget or above the the budget.

Okay. So, so you almost answered my question. Each department, although they have a budget, but then if they don't spend everything in their budget, that money should be going back to to our reserves. Correct. It should. And that's the the case we're making by providing this one-time relief. We were not doing that and therefore we had reserves in those particular budgets.

Okay. Um, chief, I'm going to ask this question, but do you have additional funding in your reserves that you can use for your officers in the past or have you always used everything that you were budgeted? Well, even though you you've only been the chief for a while, I don't think we have any type of reserve. There is uh SLFA funds um but I believe those are special funds that you can only use for certain things. And

so so which brings me to my next comment is if all the other departments have been not you've been using money that should be going back to general fund that's the taxpayer dollars. So any additional reserves that you have technically is the money of the city of series and should technically be accounted for unless it is not already being accounted for is what what I'm trying to project here. So if there's So if you're saying that facilities had 900,000 in reserves, are they using the other additional 100,000 towards their budget this year?

Not at the moment. And we are making sure that we are fully funding their operations for fiscal year 27. Um this are this were practices that were done in the past. They're no longer being done in that way. So in going forward we are not um looking at a process in which the facilities um internal service fund the IT internal service fund would have reserves in their funds. Um, with the fleet department, it's different because they do have a fleet replacement fund which is supposed to carry a fund balance because those are savings or those are monies that we're taking from each one of the departments to to have the funds available when the equipment when the car needs replacement, we take from from those um from those reserves. So with fleet it's different with our other um internal service funds the methodology in the practice prior it was um it was changed starting fiscal year 25 we're no longer doing that

okay which I'm not arguing that point at all so what I'm merely suggesting is unless facilities is use is needing that money because they need to pay for certain things what I'm saying is any department that has had any reserves that should have gone to general fund should now in fact be used to help us balance our budget is what I'm s is what I'm saying and I think city manager that's probably something you should go back to the team and talk about. I don't want to I just feel like you know with this information if we would have known this a year ago or a year prior to that we would have had not had an issue with the last physical budget owing $600,000. we could have used the reserves that we didn't as a council did not know existed. So that's why I wanted to make sure that there's a point as a driving point which really just to show that you as a finance director and the one that just left uh as as deputy was been here for further than that shows that you guys caught this now we're trying to fix this and that's why as a council we need to make sure that we have the right people in the positions that that are dealing with our finances. Okay. So number three this vacancy rate um that that is an increase correct that is a reduction from that increase and that is the the is that the frozen positions there or is that something differently or is that just vacancy people retiring?

This whole list they're cost-saving measures. So what you see in this list are savings that we have applied to the general fund in order to close the the funding gap. So, we are not in a $5.6 million deficit, but we are in a in in the deficit or the the results that we're showing you. um for the 5% vacancy rate. We worked with um our police chief and and and and with his guidance we we are assuming that from the funded funded positions that we have on board there are there are vacancies and the time that it takes for those positions to get filled we will realize some salary savings. So that's what you see in there. I believe chief you had mentioned that to me before. Okay. I just wanted to make sure the public understood that. And number four, the red the redirection of once again I guess this is fleet. This is not facilities. So this is another $400,000 that you you've reduced in that in which fund? What is that? What is number four? What is that supposed to go to?

Yes, this is uh we've reviewed the the the redirections that you're seeing in this list. They are from reviewing the methodologies that we're using for charging departments for fleet services. Okay. So, so that makes sense.

Yeah. We have three uh internal service funds. The the fleet department, the facilities, and the IT. And we've been done we've done our due diligence uh working with our departments and our analysts to take a closer look on on the methodology that it's applied and from their feedback and um and and and us putting together um making sure that the activities are reflected in the benefiting departments. This is what we've realized.

Okay. And then chief, for the the reduction, this is for overtime costs. That's basically the overtime that you're allocated every year. You guys work together and you brought it down to $120,000. Is that correct? Yeah. With uh the addition of the the officers, especially the ones coming up that are in training right now, they're projected to clear training probably uh late May, maybe early June. That's going to significantly reduce overtime. will be able to go back to the 411 shift, get off the automatic 1 hour of overtime per officer. Um, which so starting in this next fiscal year, it's going to be a um cost savings. Oh, okay. That's great. That's actually what I wanted to know. A clarification for for legal services. What is the original contract for it? You is this a reduction of 200,000? What is the original? the original contract, what we have budgeted for the uh fiscal year's past, it's been $315,000. The actual trends, the actual spent, it's been closely um at the $520,000 levels. So, what we did here is that we reduced the legal services s uh agreement back to what we've been budgeting in prior years, which is 320,000. This is a question to the interim city manager. Had you sat down and talked to um our our legal team about this number recently within the last two weeks that you've been here?

I have not.

So this is a point that I drove with the previous city manager that at no time has the city council ever ever given them direction to renegotiate that contract. So this is a conversation that needs to be had with our legal services and that I think should be the conversation you have uh in city manager and I'm obviously not going to argue the point of whether or not we should have legal services when we're obviously dealing with certain matters. Uh moving on to number seven. We actually we went over the vacancies. I guess if I go through all of them we'll be here all day. Well, I will say that city manager obviously, you know, there's a cost saving because of the contract that we negotiated with you, but the unfortunate part is we were going to have to go out uh to find a city manager, which is going to cost us 69,000, which is really a drop in the bucket at the moment. Those are the only questions that I really have and I look forward to all the information that this council has provided in direction and I just want to make sure that if you guys feel that there is anything that might have been missed that you guys reviewed the video and that way this council doesn't have to bring up that what whichever recommendation we recommended as a council um was not provided at the next meeting. So I think that's very important. Um Rosa, did you push your button while I was talking? Okay. And and yeah, go ahead. We'll um go ahead and put your comments and I'll come back.

I just kind of piggy back on kind of what you were saying. Um because I think we still have several lawsuits related or a reduction of costs really going to be actual realized as opposed to just being put down on paper. I think that's one of my main concerns is because we do still have legal or several lawsuits that are still pending and I don't know how many that were I think we're still on the hook for and that's I I don't know if those are going to be actual. Um the other one is I noticed um and I get it kind of you briefly tried to explain it to me chief and I apologize I didn't quite understand the grasp of all of it. Um, this year the AVA didn't balance out. Usually our auto vehicle, I think it's AVA, right? Abandoned vehicle. Okay. Usually balances out and usually it's not a money loss for us. And I think this year we actually lost money on it. And so that's just especially when we're looking at a budget, we're trying to find pennies for the most part, as many nickels and dimes as we can find, as Mr. Casey had stated. I just want to make sure that we are actually going to continue to at least break even in that because I thought that most of that was reimbursed through the county.

If that was a question on the finances of Ava, I would have to direct that to finance. Um, so I I think we got this question for the audit um on the audit document where

that's where the information came from. We we don't have the actuals for or the full actuals for fiscal year 26, but from the fiscal year 24 audit, yes, the um AVA, the abandoned vehicle abatement fund, it looks like it is um the revenues are are not sufficient to cover all of the expenditures, but that is coming from using their own um their own reserves. So in 24 there were expenditures planned that was using reserves in that fund and like chief said too we do have additional funding that is restricted. So the funding that we're using or the expenses that we're incurring in those funds are strictly what we are ellegible to use on those funds. Well, that was my concern because I thought it was self kind of self-funded through a non-jeneral fund, but I think the gaps were being picked up by a general fund in the last audit and that was where I just want to make sure that I'm understanding it correctly and we're not continuing to dig a hole for ourselves.

Mr. Casey, you Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry about that. Thank you, Mr. Casey. She has She has one more. Oh, I'm sorry. I say go ahead. No, go ahead. No, we're councilwoman. Go ahead. I know Mr. Casey probably has a long Okay, so now we Okay, so Mr. Casey, she says, "Go ahead." I

I would like to thank the citizens that came out tonight and the again that are on Zoom, I guess, what it's called. Thank you for being here tonight. Tell your friends about the other ones that are coming up. Thank you. Council woman, if you remember, just stop me. Okay. So, you know, I just first I want to see if the the council has an appetite for making a motion to bring back another workshop prior to our 11th meeting. that would would have to be facilitated within two weeks noting that that how difficult that would be for us to schedule. Um I don't know if that's an appetite but we have to be conscious to know that on the on the 11th is when we'll be proposing the budget which will include the draft budget and on June 8th will be the actual budget adoption. There's three other opportunities, but if we're only talking about a presentation to the public, which was presented to us today workshop, what would that look like? And could we accomplish that within two weeks? Counc, if I can just step in for one minute.

Absolutely. Um, on the agenda tonight is just a presentation for the workshop, so we wouldn't be able to make a motion, but you can certainly give staff direction to make that happen. Yes, Mr. Mayor. If I remember, that was the issue last meeting last year at the council meeting for the budget workshop. We wanted to make motions and do things and Okay, that's fine. We were acting out of line and there was no attorney there to to regulate that to your point, Vice Mayor. Okay. So, I I think that um we don't have a we don't have a meeting on the 27th. Correct. That is correct. No meeting on the 27th. No meeting on the 4th.

No meeting on the 4th. Our next meeting after the first meeting in May will be the June 8th meeting.

Okay. And so I guess even though we're I was getting ready to have that conversation with the council what I think we'll city manager could you please reach out to the city council members and have a discussion and if we come to that conclusion we the city of Siri will put out some information. I know that I've seen the council members on the dis put out information on these workshops and I think that you know the serious career obviously has as well. So we'll make sure that we continue to do that and that's I'll go back to what I would say before we need a PIO somebody dedicated to do that. So okay and uh so I don't want to make sure I take it away from anybody to make a comment. Uh council go ahead Serena. Um just really quick for clarification, we we don't have a meeting on April 27th or we do. We do. Okay. And then also um

we do you know I think that's why it's important uh during budget cycle and everything and having these meetings that we stay on track. We always have Memorial Day every year. Um this year we cancelled the meeting in the last Monday of May. We could have had a special meeting on Tuesday. Um but if we're trying to figure out meetings that might have been an option and obviously we can't make a motion or anything to change that but um I don't know if we can explore an additional meeting. Okay. For I just don't want there to be a confusion. You're tell telling me that there is or there is not a meeting on the 27th of this month on April 27th. Next Tuesday there is a meeting. Next Monday there is a meeting. Yes.

So if there is a meeting next Monday then we should include that in our agenda. I think we need some more coffee, ladies and gentlemen. We need some more coffee. Uh that that would be a decision made by you uh interim city manager as the mayor recommendation that would make more sense that we duplicate the presentation at the next city council meeting for the workshop. It would make total sense. Absolutely. Give the public another opportunity. That's all. Okay. With that being said, I just wanted to say thank you very much the all the public members that are here today and we all know that everyone is very very busy, but this video um will be posted online. I know I'll do do my best to also post some clips and videos and and I hope the city of series will also uh update on their website and put out some social media posts on up and cominging workshops, city council meetings. And with that being said, uh thank you very much. God bless. This meeting is adjourned.