City Council - Regular Meeting

And welcome everyone to the call to a special meeting today, Monday, June 1st, 2026. And I'll call this meeting to order. Roll call, please.

District 1, Council Member Casey.

Present.

District 2, Council Member Vieira. Here. District 3, Council Member Otero. Here. District 4, Vice Mayor Martinez. Absent. Mayor Lopez.

Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

But it's a different class.

We now open up citizens communications. The city council welcomes and encourages participation in the city council meetings. Adopted rules allow no more than five minutes. Resolution 2007-106. Members of the public interested in addressing the city council during the special meeting may address an item which have been described in the notice of the special meeting in accordance with the government code section 54954.3. Anyone wishing to address the city council must adhere to the rules of decorum and the rules of decorum are posted outside the chamber doors. And we'll begin with in-person comments. And just for a note for everybody, if you have any comments in regards to the agenda item for the physical budget, you may hold your comments until then.

Dave Pratiseris. Mr. Steve Whitney's going to draft a letter, put it in the courier to thank all those that helped us Memorial weekend. And on my half, I want to thank the council members, the police department, fire department, The Lions Club and the series VFW and the civilians that helped us post the flags Memorial Saturday and then Memorial Day helped us retire all the flags at the end of the day. I'm pretty sure a lot of you probably missed a few barbecues or whatever, but Our group is getting smaller and every bit, every help is appreciated. I want to thank you all.

Thank you very much. Is there anybody else?

John Warren, City of Ceres. I'm a member of the VFW, as you're aware, and also the American Legion like Mr. David Pratt. I would like also to extend my thank you to all the organizations, council members, members of the public that came out and helped us post the flags and retire them on Memorial Day. In the past, sometimes we would be out there until almost dark retrieving those flags and folding them. Ray Smith called me from the Lions Club and said, John, we're done. It was about like 630. And the flags were all folded and put away in the bins. And they did such a nice job. We had extra bins left over from previous time. So the turnout was just phenomenal as compared to the years before. And we certainly thank all of those that participated and all of those that helped round up the crew, like the football team and those kinds of folks. So thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Is there anybody else? Anyone online?

There are no hands raised and no emails received.

Thank you very much. We'll go ahead and close citizens communications and we're moving on to unfinished business. Just so everybody knows that the attachments have been included at the back table. If you require a copy of today's agenda. We will start off by the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget overview and council direction. And our finance director, Vanessa Portillo, will introduce the item. Welcome once again.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor, council members. I'm Vanessa Portillo, finance director. And tonight we will review the balancing, let me see this, the balancing strategies developed to address the general fund fiscal gap in the fiscal year 27 budget. To briefly recap, the fiscal year 27 budget process began in January with the release of the budget instructions and timelines and deadlines to the departments. The initial status quo budget along with proposed balancing strategies was presented during the budget workshop on April 21 and again at the city council meeting on April 27. The status quo budget reflected a projected general fund deficit of approximately $5.6 million, mainly driven by increases in personnel, operational, and contractual costs. Since then, staff identified and implemented approximately $3.2 million in cost-saving measures and balancing strategies, reducing the projected deficit to about $2.4 million in the city manager's recommended budget. These strategies did not include any staffing reductions and also rely on approximately $1.3 million of one-time funding. Following the budget workshop, staff updated two major cost assumptions affecting the general fund. First, the fire services contract with the city of Podesta was reduced by approximately $482,000. And second, the legal services budget was increased by $200,000 to better reflect the current spending trends. Together, these adjustments improved the projected general fund deficit from approximately $2.4 million to about $2.16 million. During the fiscal year 27 presentation on May 11, council directed staff to return with three budget options for consideration. Option A would proceed with the fiscal year 27 budget with balancing strategies, which currently includes approximately $2.16 million in reserve use. Option B, to present a budget using reserves up to a council-established limit with the range discussed at the meeting between $1 million and $1.5 million. And option C, to present a fully balanced budget where revenues would equal expenditures. Tonight's meeting will focus on the additional cost saving measures needed to achieve options B and C. Following council direction provided on May 11, all city departments met with the interim city manager to further review their budgets and identify additional reductions as well as opportunities to right-size revenues and expenditures. These actions built upon the original 14 balancing strategies previously presented to council. Some of those reductions are spread across multiple funds, including the general fund, water, sewer, and solid waste funds. However, each reduction was carefully evaluated based on its impact to the general fund deficit. Balancing strategies in the attachment that you see 15 through 98 represent the collaborative efforts of all departments working together to further reduce the general fund gap. In total, departments identified approximately $840,000 in additional balancing strategies. including nearly $570,000 in expenditure reductions in areas such as consulting contracts, training, travel, materials, and supplies, along with approximately $270,000 in additional revenue adjustments where it was deemed appropriate. These actions lowered the projected general fund deficit to approximately $1.3 million. There are also two technical adjustments that impacted the general fund. Number one, the maintenance of effort requirement for measure L, which is estimated at approximately $185,000. And number two, cost of living increases for the miscellaneous group and department heads estimated at approximately $86,000 of general fund impact. Together, these adjustments bring the projected deficit to approximately $1.6 million. Staff is seeking council direction this evening so the fiscal year 27 budget can be finalized in preparation for adoption on June 8. This time, the interim city manager will present additional recommendations to achieve option B, which includes reserve use between $1 million and $1.5 million, as well as the path forward for option C, which is a fully balanced budget.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Thank you, Vanessa. And just quickly, I'd like to once again thank all the department directors for contributing to this. Tonight, mayor and council members, you will have before you what was presented May 11th as option A. You'll have an option B, which includes some deficit spending. And then you'll have an option C, which is a essentially balanced budget. Just to recap what the finance director said, using the handout that is provided. We started at $5.6 million. The finance director got us down to, in her presentation, down to $2.157 million. That was your option A on May 11. We then went back to the departments, as the finance director said. And through this spreadsheet, you can see that we reduced an additional $840,000. So what was $2.157 million deficit spending became $1.3. We had to do some technical adjustments that brought it up to $1.588 million in deficit spending. From there, I will talk about my recommendations. You can see on the spreadsheet that we started with the top 14 or the first 14, then we went 15 through 98 in the very far left column. I will start on item number 99 and go through each one individually. SASA is Stanislaus Animal Service Agency, of which the City of Ceres is a partner in the JPA. It's multiple cities throughout the county that contribute and take advantage of the services of the Animal Services Agency. We budgeted an amount that we estimated next year's contribution to be. And now that we have actual numbers from SASA, the projected amount is being reduced by $147,000. So that is a good sign. The next thing is item number 100, the Modesto Series Fire Protection District Revenue Line. We went back and looked at what we had budgeted for fiscal year 27 and compared that to actual revenue over the last three years, and we're comfortable with increasing that anticipated revenue by another $70,000. Approximately six years ago, maybe seven years ago, the city of Ceres purchased four pieces of fire apparatus, taking an internal loan from an internal fund. The result of that is the city has to contribute $304,000 of general fund money to repay that loan. That loan is a 10-year loan, and it includes interest, and it concludes four years from now. This is year six. We have, sorry, this will be year seven. We have year eight, year nine, and year 10. I'm recommending that we suspend the repayment for this one single year. It will not adjust the overall amount that we owe at the end of the 10-year period. It's just suspending it for this one year. The city of Ceres contributes about $21,000 from general fund money to upkeep the Daniel Whitmore House. I'm recommending we suspend that this year. $22,000 to upkeep the Clinton Whitmore House. I'm recommending we suspend that this year. We contribute about $75,000. It varies year from year, but the anticipated amount that would be necessary from the general fund to fund the community center is $75,000. I recommend we suspend that this year. This action in itself would not impact the community center or the services that it provides. It's just suspending the fund transfer, not the programs. In the original budget that you've already received, the proposed budget, we already, I'm on item number 105, we already assume a 5% vacancy rate in sworn staffing. Item 105 also assumes a 5% vacancy rate in dispatch. This amount that you see of $86,936 is both the salary and benefits for a 5% vacancy rate in dispatch. Item 106 is on the sworn side. Since we have already assumed a 5% vacancy rate and salaries, this is the benefits side of that. So what is already in the budget as salaries, this $40,000 is the benefits of those salaries. We anticipate receiving after July 1st, an amount of $200,000 for a cannabis manufacturing facility. And when you add all of those up, Items 99 through items 107, you get to $969,000 reduction. So up above what was $1.5 million in deficit spending becomes $619,000 in deficit spending, and I'm recommending that as option B. On to the next page, item number 108. Alpine Security is the private security contractor that the city has an agreement with to provide certain services throughout the city, including locking park restrooms in the evening, locking the gates to certain park facilities in the evenings, and making sure that at the time those doors are locked and those gates are shut, nobody is in the park that shouldn't be in the park. The cost of that service is $64,000, and it's a contractual service. I'm recommending that we consider canceling that for next year. Before we go any further, item 108 through 113 All of these are council consideration, and I would like to, Mayor, I don't know if you want me to go through each of these, 108 through 113, and then go back and ask for consensus or do them one by one and talk about them one by one.

I would suggest that you go ahead and go through each individual one and then we can come back for consensus, at least to explain to the public.

Thank you. So item 108 would be canceling the Alpine. So for each of these, for the public's benefit and for city council, there are consequences to these cuts. We want to have a balanced budget. And with that is going to come some services that we've become accustomed to that will either need to shift to other staffing or potentially resulting in a delay or not providing those services at all. This is an example. Cutting $64,000 from the general fund through the Alpine security contract would mean that other staffing would have to take on those responsibilities. For example, police, fire, parks, or those things just would not get done. Bathrooms aren't locked. The gates aren't shut at the park. There's not a patrol at the park that escorts people out at night. So that is a potential consequence of cutting this amount of money. The next one, item 109, is a $21,000 contribution to the general fund. This is one of those that capital advocacy funds. The city of Ceres invests much more than $21,000 for capital advocacy services, but the general fund impact is $21,000. Capital advocacy is an advocacy group that provides grant watch, which means if we as a city know that we want to be on the lookout for certain types of grants. They, Capital Advocacy, with their expertise, know where to go to assist us in locating those grants. They also provide federal advocacy. If the City of Ceres is interested in a certain platform or agenda or initiative at the federal level, these folks can help us with advancing that initiative at the federal level. The total cost to the general fund is $72,000, as you see there in red. So our options are, when I first got here, I was asked, do I want to continue capital advocacy? And I told finance staff at the time, I wasn't real sure what they did. I don't want to cut them out of the budget. Let's fund them for half a year, beginning July 1st through December 1st, so I can find out what they do and see if it is of benefit to the city. So that is what this $21,000 is. This is funding them for about half a year. I think it's a little less than half a year. If we eliminate this, Capital Advocacy Services goes away July 1st. If we want to fully fund them, we need to increase the budget by $72,000 because $72,000 is the amount the general fund would have to support to fully engage with their services. Item number 110 is city council donation programs. The city budgets $25,000 of general fund money to make $5,000 available per council member for donations of their choice. Item number 111, $266,000 for donations Currently, it's Brightview is the third-party contractor that provides right-of-way maintenance. What that means is there is a landscaping service that essentially is contracted to go around through certain parts of town that have been pre-identified and maintain them, like the center medians. cutting down the weeds, making sure that trash isn't in the center medians. There are certain services that they provide for us at city parks. There are many what we call right-of-way maintenance items that this company is contracted to provide for us. Cutting this $266,000 like item 108 could mean that those services just don't get done for one year. the weeds will get longer. There may be trash in certain areas that would otherwise be picked up. Or we assign existing staff to put it on their increasingly large list of things to do, and we will get to those items as quickly as they can, but there will not be a dedicated service to provide that service for us. $266,000. Item number 112 is trunk or treat. It is $8,000 for supplies associated with the one day event. in town near Halloween. Same thing for item 13. It's $8,000 in supplies that provides for Christmas tree lane, Christmas parade, those types of things. Item 112 and 113 does not eliminate the programs. It simply eliminates the funding available for the supplies of those programs. Item number 114. is laying off two part-time code enforcement officers after January 1st of 2027. The city has two part-time code enforcement officers that are assigned to public works department streets division. These are different than the code enforcement officers assigned to the police department. The code enforcement officers assigned to the streets division took these jobs knowing that they were funded by ARPA funds through the end of this calendar year and that their employment would most likely conclude at the end of the calendar year because there was no additional identified funding. If we were to fund them past the end of the calendar year, it would cost us $33,000. Some of the services that would be reduced or reassigned elsewhere include Light abatement and cleanup services, including removal of illegal dumping, shopping cart collection, graffiti removal, and paint over, alley cleanup, canal bank and right-of-way patrols, sidewalk graffiti removal, and related cleanup activities, including the dump truck. Item 112. 14 would result in some type of reduced services in those areas. It may be that we don't do them at all. It may be that they are assigned to other staff members as time allows to get those things done. Item 115 is laying off a full-time recreation coordinator. The general fund amount is $91,575. This individual is a full-time staff member currently employed with the city of Ceres. The main responsibilities for this position is senior programming and rentals of this facility, the community center. Senior programming may be impacted with the elimination of this position as well as rentals. However, staff believes that these duties can be assigned to other existing staff without significant delay in those services. We believe we can continue providing senior programming and we can continue seamlessly renting the facility with the elimination of this position. Item 116 is to reduce part-time recreation. We currently employ approximately 10 part-time recreation staff members in the city of Ceres. They mostly occupy this building. They're the people that you see when you come up to the front counter when you first walk in the building. The funding in the general fund for these 10 positions is about $125,000. A recommendation is to reduce that amount by $50,000. Some programs that may be impacted by this reduction include kids in the park. I'm sorry, kids in the kitchen. Some crafts, dance, youth programs. Some of the hours that the building is available may be reduced. flipping rooms, and reduce the hours. Flipping rooms means that when one individual or group rents a certain room in this building and another person rents that same room, afterwards our staff will come in after the first group is done, tear the room down, and set it up the way the next group wants it. That might not be an option if we reduce this fund. It would not necessarily reduce the number of people, the 10 staff members that we have. It would simply reduce the dollars available for the hours we can pay them. Their hours would be reduced. Item number 117 is layoff parks maintenance worker. The general fund impact is $60,000. There is a consequence of that as well. The parks division would need to establish a priority-based maintenance schedule for parks, landscaping, and upkeep. The division currently maintains 14 parks with seven staff members. Reducing staffing to six employees would likely result in the inability to fully maintain approximately two city parks, and that may be on a month-to-month basis. It may be a week-to-week basis. It would be a rotating situation where the staff remaining could not service all the parks. They would service all but two. The next three options, 118, 119, 120, we have three police cadets in the police academy for which we are paying their tuition and their salary while they're in the academy. Taking the advantage of option 118, 119, and 20 would mean we would fully support them while they are in the academy, but once they complete the academy, we would not hire them as police officers. The savings of $223,000 per position. Two of these individuals, once they come out of the academy, are slated to be assigned to our patrol division. And like each of these others, there is a consequence to this. Patrol would continue to operate at minimum staffing levels, resulting in increased overtime when an officer has an unplanned absence or uses contractually guaranteed leave time. So while the salary line of the police department may be reduced by 223,000, 95 plus percent sure if we take this option over time will increase. The third officer, so two to patrol, one to detectives. The chief is relying on this position because it's vital to managing current investigative caseload. Detectives are currently unable to address all assigned cases in a timely manner. Cases will continue to be triaged and potentially become stale before investigators are able to follow up on leads. My last option is item number 121, contract out IT. We have checked with a couple of different cities who have done this, along with experience that staff members have with contracting out IT. It would be, we estimate, a savings of about $400,000. Like each of the others, there are consequences. Outages would likely take longer to resolve. There are specific programs that our IT department has developed that are not off-the-shelf projects. A contracted IT consultant would have to come in and either learn those unique systems or scrap those systems and invest in new off-the-shelf systems. There's institutional knowledge that our IT staff that would potentially be lost if we outsource them. And specifically in the police department, the police department relies heavily on IT specifically because of the fact that we house our own dispatch center and all of our internal systems. It is an option, but it's not an option I recommend. So when we add up all of those that I just mentioned, it reduces the budget by an additional $1.699 million. So at the very bottom of the sheet, what started at a $5.6 million deficit, option A on May 11th gives you $2.1 million in deficit spending. Option B, which you're seeing for the first time today, gives you a $619,000 deficit spending. And option C gives you a $1 million surplus budget. You'll see on the spreadsheet on the screen, there is a column C and a column D. What I would like to do is column D will remain steady while we go through. And if you choose not to outsource IT, we will eliminate this. And now you have a $679,000 budget surplus. Eliminate this. Now you have a $455,000 budget surplus. My recommendation as your city manager is that you do not eliminate this position, do not eliminate this position, this position, this position, or outsource IT. And if you take those last five items away, these by the way are in order of my recommendation, If we do not reduce by these last five, we now have a $52,000 deficit, which with a $30 million budget is essentially a balanced budget. We could probably find another $52,000 somewhere, but this is my balanced budget option. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Thank you, Steve. We're now going ahead and going open to the public. Is there anyone in the chambers that would like to make a comment on this item? Now is the time.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Ceres City Council, my name is John Warren, District 1 resident. I think the hard times have fallen upon our city. We have no option but to have a balanced budget. A balanced budget leaves about $400 million, if I'm correct, in reserves. And going forward into the next year, as we know from this past year, things come up that we have to reach into those reserves. And so we really need to start out with a zero balanced budget. And I think the interim city manager has done an excellent job in providing you some options here. But I do feel that option C and returning some of those items there that he mentioned that are really essential and ending up with a zero balance is probably the option that you folks should choose our police department our fire department our city staff are all going to be burdened because of this and but i think you know the path that we need to take as members up there i know that all of you aren't present tonight so a 2-2 vote is not what we're looking for. We're looking for a 4-0 vote to have a option C balanced budget with the recommendations of the assistant of the city manager. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next person. Okay, seeing none. Is there anybody online?

There are no hands raised online.

Emails?

There were no emails received.

I'll bring this item back.

Someone did just raise their hand.

Go ahead.

GA, please unmute your mic.

Leon raised her hand.

You will need to unmute your mic. We cannot hear you.

Okay. And we're going to move on. We'll now close public comment and bring this item back to the council. Start off with any comments or questions from the council. Any comments or questions, council? City manager? Unless, before we move on, if there's any questions, we can have the city manager go line by line, if that's OK.

Thank you, Mayor.

So what I'd like to do, I mean, clearly you are able to give us direction on any of these items, but I would like to start on item 1 0 8 and go down to the bottom for the city council consideration. If you would like me to go back to something that's above, just let me know and I'll go back there. But if we start with line 1 0 8 contracted services for parks, restroom closures, Alpine $64,000 to the general fund,

Okay, we'll start off. We can just ask the council from left to right if this is something that you would like to keep or remove. You have a question? Go ahead. Go ahead, Councilwoman Vieira, you have a question. Thank you.

I guess my question really results in what are the consequences of not having this? Is the police department or code enforcement or VIPs going to be able to do this? Or does this result in bathrooms being locked for six months?

Thank you, council member. We have had discussions internally of what that would look like in different options. It could be that bathrooms are not locked because we simply don't have the staff to do it. It could be that a parks person that is on duty before they go home locks the bathrooms at 4 p.m., 3.30, 4.30, and the bathrooms are just locked at that point. They're not available for the rest of the night. It could be that we have some other staff. So at this point, I can't commit to what that would look like, just the possibility that we will do what we can to maintain the service, but I do not think it will be maintained the way it is with a contracted service.

Thank you.

Council Member Otero.

Thank you, Mayor. And follow up to the obviously the restrooms being unlocked. Is there a possibility that when it comes to the parks personnel that could lock these bathrooms, is there an option to adjust hours to offset their hours? for a certain time period. I don't know if they can rotate and offset their hours where maybe the parks aren't closing at 4.30, but they're closing at 8 o'clock. Because once we, obviously once the time changes, it's going to get dark sooner.

I think that is possible, but I... Don't think at this point I would recommend that because of our limited park staff, they work as a team. And when you take one team member and you separate them out to different hours, it lessens the amount of work that the team can do as a whole. There is another option that there are on-call staff members that if we know that an event is happening and the restrooms need to remain open on a particular day until a particular time, we could use that on-call staff member to come out and lock the bathrooms after it's over. It would result in overtime for that person. They get paid on-call pay and then they get paid a minimum amount when they get called out after hours. So all of those are options.

Thank you. Any additional questions before we ask the council? There's no questions. Council Member Otero, keep this one or remove it?

Unfortunately, we'll have to remove it.

Okay. And I would rather keep it. Council Member Vieira?

Just for clarification, what exactly is each vote? It's turned on. We've had issues with Alpine, so I'm okay with ending their contract, especially with our police department, public safety not happy with the contract. If they're not happy with the contract, I'm not happy with the contract, so I'm okay with ending the contract with Alpine.

Ms. Casey?

We keep the cancellations.

You want to cancel it? Okay, there you go. You got your direction there. Item number 109, any questions? That's Member Beer.

I prefer not to have them at all. I haven't seen any benefits the entire time we've had the consultant. So I'm happy with just ending everything and not even giving him six months.

Council Member Otero.

Thank you.

With this one, I know that there's challenges with finding out what grants are out there. They have ways to study these grants more to figure out if we can even get a grant, but I am supportive of counseling this. I think that there's potential with writing grants maybe through MJC or Stan State. Maybe we can get an internship of students that are interested in helping us to write grants.

Mr. Casey? rid of it. I'm going to be against it. But we are we are also going to lose very many opportunities in funding parks. And they're also working on the VFW grant, which we are now in appropriation. So once that cease to exist, there will be no support and we will not be able to upgrade that facility. But that's the will. Moving on to 110 questions.

It's unfortunate with this program. You know, I think we have to do away with this. We have many organizations out there that we can support with the donation program, but the city's in a position that we have to make some hard decisions, and this is one of those that I can't support next fiscal year.

And I agree with Councilwoman Otero. We unfortunately can't move forward with the donations of $25,000. Councilman Rivera?

I'm in alignment with both of you. I also didn't think we had it this year. Although it passed, I am not supportive of keeping it again in Nick's budget. We just don't have the finances to help all the organizations that need help. And I apologize, but I definitely would like to see it cut.

Ms. Casey? Right. Cancel the program. Sounds good. Item number 111, right away. We'll just start left to right. Don't worry about it. I think we're in a good flow here. Go ahead.

I personally am not a fan of the Brightview contract right now. I don't think that they benefit our city very well. There's a lot of improvements that are needed. I'm suggesting maybe we try to find a contract where it could potentially be every other month. I do see weeds on the right-of-ways in my district. They probably go and clean up every other month. So I don't support the Brightview contract.

I will agree 100%. Brightview has not done the job that they were supposed to do. As I highlighted myself personally, as I went around the city of Ceres and continue to see, unfortunately, areas that have not been taken care of. And I think we're going to have to come up with different ways to take care of that. Even if it's volunteer work, I'm willing, if I'm allowed, to go out there with the weed eater and do it myself. And I'll probably do a better job. I almost guarantee it. $266,000 for a contract that I believe that should have been well taken care of. It's been an unfortunate circumstance, but no to that.

I'm completely aligned with you, both of you. We've been complaining about the service and the performance of Brightview. I do think we also should be looking at the other contracts that we have in the city, because I don't know if they're the only contract that's not following our expectations. But as well, I have weeds in my district as well, Serena, so I totally have the same feelings when it comes to their maintenance of our city, and I don't feel we're getting our contract and our expectations from the contract. So I'm happy to see that being eliminated as well as even looking at the other ones as well.

Mr. Casey. Councilman, ma'am. Thank you. Item 112.

When it comes to programs, this is one that I won't be able to support this year when it comes to supplies. I think for us as a city, we need to do a better job of getting citizens involved. There needs to be more public engagement. Because if we did, maybe we can get more donations from either citizens or businesses. But oftentimes, We lack in that area. So with the supplies on 112 and I'll just say 113, we have to do away with those this year.

I feel that we should keep item 112 and 113. Councilwoman?

I don't think we need another 20-foot jack-o'-lantern, I think is what they got last year. I don't think we need to be buying supplies and more inflatables. If anything, I can see buying some candy canes for everyone, but I do agree with Otero where we need to work on community donations and seeing what we can do. So I'm not supportive of spending $8,000 for each one of those.

Excuse me. You know, earlier we heard from the American Legion and the VFW what an outstanding job the community came forward. And the reason they came forward is because Mr. Warren went to one of the clubs and asked for help. So I agree we can cancel this. Our city, though, does such a piss-poor job of communicating what's going on in our needs. Here we are talking about a very important issue, and there's eight people out there. So I think the 8,000 and the 16,000 can easily be made up by just letting the community know that we need some help. We'll cancel them.

Thank you. And now we will move on to staffing. Item number 114. Daryl.

When it comes to code enforcement, they've really been doing a good job. I know that in my district, I've seen them keep out homeless from certain areas, getting rid of illegal dumps and everything. This is hard because I think So $33,000, I'm looking at our elected official budget, and there may be some costs there that we could maybe talk about tonight to reduce more that can possibly go towards the code enforcement positions. And what those options could be is you look at reducing training more, professional development, and the travel on top of the health insurance. We could volunteer actually to reduce our stipend and help contribute to the code enforcement position as well. And I would be supportive of doing those recommendations that I suggested.

On item number 114, do you want to keep it or get rid of it?

Well, maybe our finance director, if you were to give us a cost with those reductions from the elected officials' budget, what would the amount come out to?

We can take a look really quickly. We will take a look and provide that. Thank you.

Keep it or get rid of it.

Well, until Vanessa presents us with some costs, I'd like to withhold my decision.

Can I just add one thing, Mayor? Yes, you may. Council member Otero spoke about within the city council general fund budget training, professional development and travel. I do not think there's $33,000 worth of reductions left in those three. So it would have to fall into the stipends or some of the other options that you mentioned, but I finance director correct me if you think I'm wrong, but I don't think that there's enough remaining in those three items to make up 33,000.

In the general fund, there is about $19,000 remaining between travel subscriptions and operating expenses. So there wouldn't be enough dollars to sustain the $33,000 reductions.

Could we potentially look at maybe keeping one of our part-time code enforcement if the other council members agree to my recommendation? Right, but they work hand in hand, right? The parks code enforcement with the police?

These two part-time staff members that we're talking about are completely separate from the police department. They report to the public works department, one of the divisions within the public works, and they work independently from the police code enforcement. There may be some overlap if there needs to be a team effort on something, but my understanding is the day-to-day operations is they are completely separate. Chief, can you confirm that? That is correct.

But regardless, they are still helping with cleanup, graffiti removal, things like that to help keep our city appearance to look clean. Thank you.

These positions were actually funded by ARPA funds, correct? And they run out in July?

They are currently and they will continue to be funded by ARPA funds from the beginning of next fiscal year, July 1st, through the end of the calendar year. And that's when that ARPA funding for those two positions are exhausted.

Thank you very much. I would make a recommendation on item number 114 that we get rid of these two positions. Unfortunately, they are funded by ARPA fund and we no longer have the funds available. Council Member Rosendo.

Thank you. I agree as well. I think we're looking at other ways of funding code enforcement through police with CDBG and then the other grant that I talked to when I talked to Angela Freitas with community planning. So if we can possibly get those other funds, maybe we can bring them back. But I am supportive of limiting the two from public works and keeping our code enforcement through public safety and police and possibly bringing on additional ones if we get the additional funding and having them go through police. And I think Chief is nodding in agreement that he'd be able to oversee that or have someone oversee better alignment with the staffing needs through public safety. So I'm okay with removing the public works and possibly increasing our public safety if the fundings come available.

Thank you. Mr. Casey?

Yes. You know, every council meeting, I learn something new. Since we're talking about people, I mean, there's no names here, but individuals, typically don't we do that in the closed session? Is this appropriate to talk about this now? Staffing impacts.

Council Member Casey, this is a larger budgetary discussion, and it's not individual. These are, from what I understand, because these are two very specific jobs that are tied to ARPA funding. I don't believe they're included as part of, you're probably thinking bargaining, bargaining unit discussion. Is that what you're referring to?

Not so much the 114, but the next one we're going to talk about is 115, 116. 114 is nothing to talk about. They're funded, and they're funded, and they knew that when they got hired. I'm just talking about the other people.

So I think maybe what you're referencing is because it's related to positions that might be impacted from a bargaining unit standpoint. Is that what you're referring to? Well, again, since this is a budgetary discussion, it's a larger budget discussion. If there's implications related to specific bargaining groups, that is something that we can address in closed session.

So Williams, just real quick, you had told us in our meetings that These two positions, there was an understanding that when the funds ran out of ARPA funds that they would possibly no longer have a position available to them.

Is that correct? Correct. For item 114, the two part-time code enforcement officers assigned to streets were hired with the understanding that funding for their position would end at the end of the calendar year and their employment would likely not continue after that. As for the other positions, when we get into the full-time staffing, I can tell you that I met with the labor group representatives of item 115 and 117, 118, 19, 20, and 21. and had those discussions with those labor groups.

Thank you. Mr. Casey, what is your will on number 114?

114, remove it.

Okay. I found it right, got it. That is the will. Councilwoman Otero, you had a question.

Yeah, just what is the cost of a part-time code enforcement for the police department? While we're waiting for that, if I can ask a question to the chief. With your current code enforcement at the police department, are they going to be able to do graffiti removal, painting? Is that something that they have assisted with in the past?

No, they don't do any of the graffiti removal. We had that contracted out, and we canceled that, bought the part-time code officers some equipment to do that, and they're not able to handle that.

If the city were to somehow come up with the funds for the part-time code enforcement or even through grants, is that a task that they are going to be assigned?

I don't know if we've had that discussion yet. Depending on what happens tonight, we'll have to figure out something between us and Parks, how we're going to tackle that.

Thank you.

We have that information. One part-time code enforcement officer is about $33,000.

And you said with the reduced elected officials budget, with the items I suggested, how much was that going to be?

Just in the operating expenses line category, we have about $19,000. Thank you.

Item number 115. I'm sorry, Rosalinda, you had a question? come back. Item number 115, Otero.

This is a position that I would have to support cutting at this time. It's unfortunate that we've had to put our employees in this position and our citizens, but that cost, it's going to have to be reduced.

I will also agree with this with item number 115 to remove this position. Councilwoman Vieira?

I think I have some questions. This individual handles some of the grants and some of the special events. Is that going to be able to be taken? Are they able to adjust hours and maybe reduce additional part-time staff by adjusting our full-time staff? Because right now with only two staff members, maybe a third, we're not going to be able to even be open seven days a week like we are now. And so that's where my concern is, is with only two staff members in the office that doesn't give us the coverage that we need for the seven days or six days a week that we're open, plus the seventh that it's contracted out. How does that look by eliminating this position when it comes to public access?

item one fifteen and one sixteen combined if we eliminate both of those there will be changes to wait to the way this building operates in terms of the hours that it's open the programs that it provides again it's the consequences of having a balanced budget is some of the things that we have become accustomed to no longer will be available specifically with the grants and the senior programming staff believes that we can continue both with grants and with senior programming by reassigning those duties to other existing staff. However, in terms of the seven days a week that the building is open and the number of hours that the building is open, if you move forward with my recommendation to cut 115 and 116, I suspect that the hours of the building will be adjusted accordingly.

Without knowing the exact impacts on here, it says dance. I thought that was third party. So we got a percentage of it. Some of the stuff I can see if we're not breaking even, but it also includes cutting youth programs. And I don't know if I'm completely supportive of 115 without, I'm okay with 116, but 115, I'm just concerned about hours if we only have two staff members in here. If we're going to be able to maintain the hours to provide the youth programs, the registration, the ballet that we have in here, the Zumba, the senior programs, I would prefer to keep the three full-timer and then eliminate as many part-time staff as possible.

Mr. Casey? Number 115? We have to eliminate the positions. Okay. Council Member Otero, did you have an additional comment or question on 115? No? For 116? Okay, now it's your turn for 116.

On 116, can you clarify the youth programs that the part-time recreation staff is, I guess, hosting or, yeah, hosting?

I will do my best. My understanding is that we typically have one to two part-time staff members at the front counter. When there are two and a room needs to be flipped, one of those two staff members will come and flip the room, prepare it for the next rental, as well as one of those two staff members double as either a city representative to oversee a third-party contractor that comes in and offers those services, or they actually provide those services themselves. And there are many craft programs and dance programs. I don't think our staff members instruct the dance classes, but I think that there are some of our part-time staff members whose hours would be reduced by this. do engage in some type of instruction or staff-led activity, and I can't confirm which of those would be impacted. I just listed the ones that could potentially be impacted. It's possible none of these are impacted, and we continue with all of them. But when I ask staff what would happen if we reduce the hours of those part-time staff members, what could happen? This is what could happen.

And when it comes to the monthly rotating crafts, is that for the senior programs or is that something else?

Joshua or Jessica? Is Jessica still here?

With the senior programming, what the part-time would be if you were to cut part-time? It would be overseeing all of the classes that go on throughout the day. So that would be dance, Zumba, the kids in the kitchen. Sorry. I'm having a. But pretty much what the part-time staff do while they're here is they flip for the rooms for the next day. They get ready for the kids in the kitchen, the craft classes, and those rotate. So I can't tell you what it would be specifically for each month, but the staff do put those on. And then they oversee the dance, the youth, the Zumba, and any other contract services that we have here. So eliminating the part-time staff would make it to where we would be unable to hold those classes during those times.

For the dance classes, is that taught by staff or is that taught by someone else?

That is contractual. So we actually make revenue from that. We would end up having to cut that or... change the hours of operation, which would not be beneficial for the community.

When you talk, there's mention of the flipping rooms. Is that for... I guess a city purpose, like a program that we have, or is that because somebody rented the room and they want it set up a certain way or they rented and now they leave the room and now we have to prepare for someone else? Because I feel like if someone is renting the rooms, they should contribute to tearing down, putting things back the way they were. City staff shouldn't have to manage that if they're responsible.

The American Legion Hall, the renter does take out and they do their own flip before and after. For the community center, staff does that for everything. So everything from council all the way down to jogos, weddings, meetings, the animal shelter meetings, the ERC meetings, everything that happens here in the community center, the staff do. So there's multiple flips every single day.

That's all for my questions. Thank you.

Are you supporting cutting this or keeping it?

Well, I think with this, you know, we use the example of like the flipping rooms or crafts. We have to get more community involvement. We've got to do a better job of that flipping rooms. If we're having the renters at the American Legion flip a room, why are we not having the renters at the community center flip a room? So I can't support keeping the part-time production or part-time recreation right now. Thank you.

Okay, I will support to keep part-time recreation. Councilwoman Vieira.

I know Jessica went and sat down.

I have another question for you.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Now, we charge more when they rent here because of the tear down and the setup, correct? Okay. I just want to make sure that they're not doing the tear up or set up and tear down at the other ones, and then they're paying the same as they are. So we're charging. That's part of it.

Yes, we do make more revenue here by doing that, as well as depending. Our staff know how to flip the room and get everything done and situated for the next. There's multiple that we have on Wednesdays. There's times where we have three flips in a day. And so if we have to wait on that renter in order to do that, they're not going to be done in time for the next individual, which again would be a loss of revenue.

And then we still have enough staff though to do already on hand correct to do some of the stuff that still needs to get done.

Okay. So right now, yes.

All right. Thank you. All right. I'm supportive of the reduction. keeping it cut from the budget.

I support the reduction.

Okay. Item number 117.

On this item, I will have to support reducing the parks maintenance worker, unfortunately. One of the programs that the city of Ceres has, and I know that we don't want our citizens to have to cover every potential service here, but there is an adopt a park program. And again, many people probably are not aware of adopt a park or organizations are aware because we do a poor job of letting the public know. So we have to do better. There's always community service that some of our teens need or there's organizations that want to give back. So at this time, I will have to support reducing that position.

I will support to keep item 117.

I agree with you, Otero. There's a lot of organizations I'm getting text messages even now with organizations willing to help and step up and help with the Adopt-A-Park or helping with community service, especially with it now being a state requirement. So I'm supportive in keeping that cut as well.

Mr. Casey? Reduce it and cancel it.

Okay, sounds good. And I just clarified that was three to reduce and one not to reduce.

Correct.

Item number 117.

And item number 118?

When it comes to, is it okay if we just, can I speak to all three?

Yeah, I think that's the best way to approach it.

So 118 through 120. We already have positions that are unfunded right now in the police department. So we have our captain, our sergeant, three officers, three dispatchers. They're already feeling the effect of these cuts. And for me, when it comes to public safety, that has to be number one. I've already mentioned it before. We have to have law and order in our city or else people are not going to want to live here and businesses are not going to want to come here. So With those three positions, we have to get those officers through the academy into the department. We have to prepare for when other officers maybe have a leave of absence or maybe an officer goes to another agency. Otherwise, we're going to start getting or we're going to start having a lot of overtime again. So those positions, I support having those positions remain.

I would not support cutting public safety, so I would support all three positions.

I'm all in with both of them. I am not supportive of cutting police either. I think we need to have safe officers and trained officers. I know we have a great FTO program here, and I would like to continue seeing those positions funded.

Mr. Casey.

Well, I'd like to see them funded too, but we don't have the funds to fund them, so I'm against funding them.

Thank you very much. Item number 121.

For 121, the thing about IT, and I think that our city manager already explained it really well, you do tend to, over the years, create internal programs or internal processes within the IT division. The institutional knowledge is key. We've actually lost a lot of institutional knowledge, and that's probably why we're in the situation we're in today with this budget. we can't lose IT. I can tell you with the technology and the private sector, those costs are probably only going to continue increasing. So we lose, we lack knowledge, you know, of throughout the city that our IT already knows. You bring new people in, the services may actually be reduced or they may not benefit our city as a whole. So when it comes to IT, I have to support keeping those positions and figuring out if there's any other areas in this budget that we can try to reduce some more.

I support keeping IT.

I agree with both of you. I think, especially with council meetings and legal compliances, I think we need to have an IT person, at least one on staff and present, especially during council meetings and planning commission and other state required meetings. So I'm supportive of at least having at least one IT person here just to make sure that we have what we need and are able to comply with state law.

Ms. Gacy. Yes, I think we need to keep them speaking firsthand in the private sector. We don't know how it works. I support keeping our present situation. Thank you.

Mr. Interim City Manager, what's the number now?

So with your input... I just would like to recap items 108 through 115. Sorry, 108 through 117. will continue with reducing those positions through the parks, layoff parks maintenance worker. There was not consensus for 118, 119, 120, and 121. That leaves us with option C being a positive balance of $8,580. I have a question, Council Member Vieira, on item number 115.

You said that you did not support cutting that position, right? Which is the layoff of the recreational coordinator. Do you still feel the same way?

Do I think that's the best option? No. It sounds like from Jessica they're able to make it work. I just thought we could probably maybe try to keep our full-time staff and try to do more cuts on the part-time, as well as I don't want to see the hours cut here in the community center. But if this is where we're at and we're not in the deficit, I'm okay with the decisions where I was outvoted. I'm okay with the consensus vote.

Okay, then I won't touch it. Okay, Mr. City Manager.

That concludes the presentation. We have option A provided to you May 11th, the $2.1 million deficit spending. Again, we started at a $5.6 million deficit. Option B is a $619,000 deficit spending budget. And as a result of your comments and consensus tonight, we will present you with option C, which is a balanced and, in fact, positive budget at the June 8th city council meeting.

Question. To the city attorney and the city manager, could we essentially just vote on this item today and pass the budget today? Or is that a no?

No. No, it wasn't agendized as such.

It wasn't agendized as such? Okay, I just wanted to make sure.

This does give staff a good direction on how to present it and prepare for your consideration and adoption at the next meeting.

Okay, thank you very much. Council Member Otero, you had a question.

I just have some last comments that I'd like to share. Creating, or based on option C, now we create a surplus. And yeah, that's a positive. But regardless, we've had to cut a lot of services throughout all these different budgets. Our citizens are going to fill these cuts And it's unfortunate. I've spent several hours pretty much every evening since May 11th trying to figure out and ask questions. I've sent Steve so many questions from every single budget here. um to figure out what can we cut are we accounting for these this funding are we accounting for the partnerships when we have events um where's the what revenue is coming in trying to look at all options because uh this is hard these are hard decisions that had to be made and it's unfortunate that over I don't know how many years. City probably hasn't made very many hard decisions. But here we are today. And what I expect is that going forward, we start creating a plan of how we're going to get out of this. One of those is the strategic plan that I asked for last January. We have to get started on that. We have to have a vision together as a community involving department staff as well. The other thing is... I would still hope that my colleagues here would consider a forensic financial audit. There are things that I'm still concerned about on how we potentially may have got here. A forensic audit doesn't mean that somebody committed fraud or embezzlement. A forensic audit will dive deeper into potential material weaknesses, which has been quoted in some of our audits. So it allows us to really look at our policies and procedures and making sure that we are following state laws. We get current on audits, all of that. So I do appreciate city manager who came in to this inherited these finance issues. And then I also appreciate our finance team whose same thing have not been here for very long. They've been extremely helpful and You guys have also got the questions from the city manager. So I do appreciate it. And just to our city staff, I appreciate you guys diving in and looking at ways that we can cut, you know, the police department. He had to look at things he can cut. And even then that's unfortunate. You know, we go back to how can we reduce as council members, our elected officials budget. I don't care if it's another $2,000 that can go to a police officer who needs training because it's, Even if it's not a mandated training, there's probably a training that they're going to need to be successful out there to keep themselves safe and to keep our community safe. So I hope that my colleagues will continue to consider that. We have another meeting that obviously we will vote. But I do appreciate all of you in helping us to review. And it's unfortunate still the situation that we're in.

Thank you very much. Is there any additional comments by the council? If not, we'll go ahead and leave. That is it. We now move on to closed session. But before we do, I just want to thank everybody for being here today and providing your input as well. We're now moving to closed session. Closed session for a conference regarding threat to public service and facilities, California Government Code 54957. Consultation with Police Chief Trenton Johnson. A conference with labor negotiators, California Government Code 54957. Agency designated representatives is Interim City Manager Steve Williams. Human Resources Director Lila Vasquez. Employer Organization is Laborers International Union of the North, American LIUNA. A conference for real property negotiations, California Government Code 54956.8, property APN 038, 015, 039. Agency negotiator is interim city manager, Steve Williams, and the city attorney will be a ghosting. Goldstein. Negotiating parties are Antonio and Lilia Cordova. Under negotiations for price and terms of payment. A conference with real property negotiations. California Government Code 54956.8. Property APN 038-011-020. Agency negotiators interim city manager Steve Williams and city attorney Anubia Goldstein. Negotiating party is Jose Mejia. Under negotiations for price of terms of payment. Is there anyone in the public that would like to speak regarding the closed session items? Seeing none, this meeting is adjourned. God bless.

Welcome back direction has been provided to staff, thank you.