City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It is 06:01, and I call this special meeting of the Cupertino City Council, 05/11/2026 meeting to order. Madam City Clerk, will you please call the roll? Councilmember Freud?

Here. Councilmember Mohan? Here. Councilmember Wong?

Here.

Mayor Moore? Here. Thank you. Tonight is a study session on the budget. Madam City Manager, do we have a presentation?

Thank you, Mayor. We do have a presentation. Tonight we're presenting the proposed budget for your review and discussion as part of this budget study session. As you know, one significant component of the budget, which is the law enforcement contract, is still being finalized, and it remains a moving target as negotiations continue. I do want to note that our efforts have so far resulted in a reduction of more than $1,000,000 from earlier projections, which is a positive development.

I also want to point out that what you will see tonight is not the final budget. The finalized budget will be brought back to council in June for formal adoption. This evening provides an opportunity for council to review the proposed budget, provide feedback, and identify any adjustments or additional direction you would like staff to consider before the final version is prepared. I would like to thank the budget team and staff from all departments who helped with the preparation of the proposed budget and also thank all council members for taking the time to meet with staff last week to go over tonight's materials. And with that, I will now turn it over to acting director of admin services Jonathan Orozco and acting budget manager Tony Oase Anderson for the presentation.

Good evening, honorable mayor Moore, vice mayor, and council members. Tonight's staff will present the city manager's proposed fiscal year twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven budget. The purpose of tonight's study session is to provide an overview of the proposed budget, receive comments and questions from counsel and the public, and gather feedback before returning in June, June 16, for the final budget hearing and adoption. This slide provides a high level overview of the city's budget, development, and balancing process. As you can see, the budget began back in earlier in the fiscal year in October where the budget format was reviewed by a subcommittee of the audit committee and formats were subsequently provided to counsel and a approval was granted to pursue a more robust and transparent budget.

Later in the fiscal year, in December, a Q1 report was provided to council and the updated city work program was approved. In March, the midyear budget was provide midyear budget update was provided along with the city as capital improvement program. Last month, we had a successful community budget meeting where we received the highest turnout in recent years. And here we are today with the proposed budget hearing that includes CIP review. And then next month, we will have the proposed budget for both the operating and the CIP.

The proposed budget and related materials are available in the city's website at cupotino.gov/budget. This year also marks the city's first year utilizing open gov publications and the financial transparency portal to improve accessibility and transparency of financial information. The new platform allows users to more easily navigate the budget and explore financial data. I would like to point out that it's still a work in progress. Some charts are need to be resized, but we are in the process of cleaning that up, and that will be updated before the the final adopted budget.

In addition, the budget learning library provides educational resources to help explain key budget concepts and processes for community members who may be less familiar with finance municipal finance. Tonight's presentation will begin with financial overview and discussion of the general fund forecast, followed by an overview of the general fund and all funds revenues and expenditures. We will then review proposed budget results, staffing, and capital improvement program before concluding with the discussion on key issues and challenges and next steps in the budget process. This table provides a high level overview of the city's major fund groups. Across all funds, the city is proposing a 150,600,000 in revenues and a 155,500,000 in expenditures, resulting in a planned use of fund balance or a net position of approximately 4,900,000.

It's important to note that the negative change in fund balance does not necessarily indicate a structural issue. In many cases, it reflects a planned use of accumulated reserves or onetime funding for capital projects and infrastructure investments. The general plan general fund remains balanced with a projected surplus of just over $30,000. We now move into the general fund forecast. I'll briefly cover key revenue forecast assumptions used in developing the ten year forecast.

For the city's largest revenue sources, sales tax and property tax, staff utilized HDL's fiscal year twenty twenty five twenty six projections followed by a moderate annual growth assumption of approximately 2.58% in the out years. The significant increase in sales tax revenue between adopted budget and the proposed fiscal year twenty six twenty seven adopt proposed budget is largely attributed to the strong growth in a limited number of businesses within the city. Due to confidentiality requirements associated with sales tax data,

staff cannot discuss specific taxpayers. For trans transient occupancy tax or hotel tax, the forecast assumes modest long term growth based on historical trends. Lastly, the forecast assumes the recession in fiscal year twenty seven, twenty

eight with no revenue growth assumed in major categories except property taxes. This slide summarizes the expenditure assumptions incorporated in the forecast. Personnel personnel costs continue to be one of the city's largest expenditure categories. Compensation assumptions include negotiated COLA increases, step increases, and a 4% vacancy assumption in all years. The benefit costs are based largely on CalPERS projections and anticipated increase in health insurance contributions.

Materials and contracts are generally forecasted using CPI assumptions with the sheriff's contract specifically forecasted as CPI plus two or roughly four and a half percent to 5% annually. It is important to note that the city still does not know what the increase annual increase will be for sheriff's contract as if as they are informed the city that it will be based off of actuals. And so we have yet to see what that or yet to see what to anticipate for those growths. So as we move through the the negotiation process, we'll update the forecast to reflect the updated numbers or anticipated growth. This chart visually illustrates the projected changes in general fund over the next ten years.

The updated forecast now shows some modest operating surplus in the next three fiscal years beginning with the proposed fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven budget. This improvement is largely attributed to stronger than anticipated revenues, fiscally prudent decisions over the past few years. However, the forecast per per sorry. The forecast per progresses into the out years expenditures begin to outpace the revenue growth, resulting in a return of structural deficit later in the forecast period. Key drivers include the uncertainty in the long term growth of the sheriff's contract.

It is also important to note that the long term forecast includes a four percent vacancy savings assumption in all years, while the proposed budget itself is built position by position and therefore does not assume vacancies. This side provides additional detail on projected general fund balance classifications over the next ten years. Overall, the city's general fund balance remains relatively stable in the next three years of the forecast with the total fund balance projected of approximately 178,000,000 in fiscal year twenty six twenty seven. However, beginning in fiscal year twenty thirty, the fund balance is project projected to gradually decline as expenditure growth begins to outpace revenue growth and the forecast returns to a structural deficit. The forecast assumes reserve reserve for future use remains untouched at approximately 62,000,000 throughout the entirety of the forecast period.

The economic uncertainty reserve is projected to grow over time as revenues and expenditures increase, while the pension trust initially grows due to investment earnings. The unassigned fund balance is projected to remain positive throughout the forecast, though it declines in the later years as a forecast of the forecast due to ongoing expenditure pressures and scheduled sunset of the user utility tax fiscal year twenty thirty thirty one. This chart provides a high level a consolidated summary of the the various classifications within the general fund. As you can see, we are projected to end the fiscal year 2526 with a 177.9 or a 178,000,000 in total fund balance where as next fiscal year, we are anticipating a $178,000,000, which is just that $31,000 increase. However, as indicated in the forecast, by fiscal year twenty thirty five, twenty thirty six, the city anticipates to have a fund balance of a 143,000,000 or a $144,000,000.

And largely, you can see the decrease in unassigned fund balance decreasing from 65,900,000 in the current fiscal year down to $2,700,000. Next, we'll provide an overview of the general fund revenues and expenditures proposed in fiscal year twenty six twenty seven. This table compares proposed general fund revenues in fiscal year twenty five twenty six of the 2526 adopted budget. Overall, general fund revenues are projected to increase by approximately 12,500,000 or 12.9% compared to the current adopted budget. The largest increase is in sales tax, primarily driven by strong performance in a small number of businesses.

Sorry. Licenses and permits are also included or increasing due to the development related activity and updated fee assumptions, while the use of money and property revenues continue to benefit from the higher investment earnings. This table summarizes general fund expenditures compared to the current adopted budget. Overall expenditures are increasing by approximately 10,500,000 or 10.6%. The largest increase is within contract services primarily driven by the increases related to law enforcement services.

Personnel cost per personnel costs are also continued to rise due to the negotiated compensation adjustments and benefit cost increases. Next, we'll transition to the general fund from the general fund to an overview of all city funds combined. This table compares all funds revenues between the current adopted budget and the proposed fiscal year twenty six twenty seven budget. Across all funds, revenues are projected to increase by approximately 16,900,000 or 12.7%. The primary drivers generally align with general fund, including increase in sales taxes, investment earnings, development relating activity, and intergovernmental revenues.

Across all funds, expenditures are projected to increase by approximately 19,900,000 compared to budget. The largest increase are, again, within the contract services due to the law enforcement increases and and top of above the capital projects and transfers out reflecting continued infrastructure investment, operating costs, and interfund support needs. With that, I now turn the presentation over to Tony OSA Anderson, acting budget manager.

Thank you, acting director Orozco. This slide here defines the impacts of onetime costs versus ongoing costs in fiscal year twenty seven budget and the city's ten year forecast. The following four slides are images of the twenty five to twenty twenty seven city work program, which has a total of 30 projects, one of which was cancelled at the December 2025 meeting bringing it to a total of 29 city work program projects. This slide updates the city work program included in the budget document to reflect recent funding updates and requests. While several projects were originally identified with zero allocated budget, the protections for parkland and housing site inventory projects have since received funding allocations of approximately 475,000 and $660,000 respectively.

At this time, the only new fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty seven funding requests associated with the city work program is a public outreach and engagement strategy project for 25,000. If approved by city council, this request would reduce the currently projected general fund surplus of approximately $30,900. Overall, there are a total of $2,370,000 in one time requests. Dollars 90,000 in recurring costs for a total of 2,460,000 in requests for next fiscal year. The majority of budget requests are in the internal service funds at $1,300,000 mainly for vehicle and equipment replacement and IT infrastructure related projects.

And also about 1,100,000 in general fund requests. These requests will be reviewed in the following slides. This slide shows the requests broken out by departments. So as mentioned in the previous slide, there are a total of $2,370,000 in one time requests, 90,000 in recurring costs and a total of 2,460,000 in requests for next year. Majority of these requests are in the city's largest department of public works.

And more information on these will be recovered in the following slides. Now we'll review department requests at a high level. So for City Council there is a total of $32,500 for community funding, which we'll cover in a future slide. This is for the innovation technology department which shows a total of $565,000 in requests. Some of the larger requests here are in the internal service funds for $150,000 each for network access control and WiFi refresh and for multifunction printers.

The next largest request is in the general fund for $115,000 for a Panasonic camera and controller. The video projects are PEG funded. In the community development department, they are requesting $117,000 in the general fund. And these requests include on call contracts for design review and environmental review. The parks and recreation department is requesting $15,500 in the general fund for Quinlan community center roundtable replacement.

The public works department is requesting 1,640,000 in one time cost and 90,000 in recurring costs. The largest request is in the internal service funds for $890,000 for vehicle and equipment replacement followed by a request of 130,000 in facilities for HVAC upgrade. Two other larger funding requests are in the transportation division. And you'll see here there's a $115,000 for the Stevens Creek Boulevard traffic signal synchronization project and $110,000 for the De Anza traffic signal synchronization project. There are also four facilities related projects, which total $322,000 And the sustainability intern is a request to directly support all sustainability work streams.

It will this position will also help maintain compliance with the adopted climate action plan two point o, meeting reporting requirements and advanced priority climate and environmental initiatives that are identified by council, including public engagement and sustainability. This table here lists all the organizations that are requesting festival fee waivers for next fiscal year and organizations receiving festival fee waivers in the current fiscal year along with year to date costs. It is recommended that city council approve a budget of $141,154.03 in fist festival fee waivers. This slide here are the community funding requests which includes organizations that received funding last fiscal year and are recommended to receive funding next fiscal year. And the total is $32,500 in requests for funding.

This is just another way to look at the community funding request. This chart was provided to you as an attachment to the study session agenda with further information from the Parks and Recreation Commission who approved the following proposed list of organizations to receive the $32,500. So if additional funding is available, there is a request to first fund the Fremont Union High Schools Foundation and the remaining organizations requested amount in the rank order at the council's discretion. For staffing, there are no new full time positions requested next fiscal year. Moving on to CIP.

This slide shows the capital improvement program which was presented to council in March. The CIP includes 7,500,000 in total funding which includes 7,300,000 in projects and 175,000 in ongoing planning design and project support. CIP is funded by 6,900,000 in city funding, which includes the resumed $2,000,000 transfer to the capital reserve, and $600,000 is externally funded in for from in lieu funds. Now I'll hand the presentation back over to acting director Orozco.

While the proposed budget for fiscal year twenty six twenty seven budget is balanced and the city's financial outlook has improved compared to prior years, there are still several important issues and challenges that could impact the city's long term financial stability. First, the city continues to face structural challenge where expenditure growth is projected to outpace revenue growth in the out years of the forecast. Although the next several years are projected to remain positive, ongoing cost pressures eventually result in a projected deficit beginning in fiscal year two thousand thirty. Second, there continues to be uncertainty surrounding the future growth of this sheriff's contract. While the forecast currently assumes the annual growth of CPI plus two, ongoing negotiations ongoing negotiations and future county cost allocation methodologies could materially impact the long term expenditures.

Staff will continue to closely monitor these issues and return to counsel with updates as additional information continues sorry, additional information becomes available. To next steps.

Okay.

So for next step, let's talk about what's coming up next in the budget cycle. So today is the proposed budget study session. And on June 16, we'll return for the final budget hearing and adoption. And as mentioned already, the fiscal year twenty seven marks the first year that we're using OpenGov publications to produce the budget document in both a PDF and an online interactive format. Staff has been working diligently to ensure accuracy during this transition so as mentioned earlier, some formatting will still be addressed in coordination with OpenGov so the interactive version will be published at a future date along with adopted budget.

So in November we will present to you the first quarter financial report which will update the city council on year end results of the current fiscal year and first quarter results for next fiscal year. That concludes our proposed budget presentation. Thank you for listening and the budget team and department directors are available to answer any questions you may have.

Right, thank you very much for the presentation on the budget. Do we have any clarifying questions from members of the council at this time? No questions. Councilmember Fruin.

Can you take us

back to Slide 11 for a moment? Okay. Perfect. So for the sake of clarity, the UUT expires in twenty thirty, thirty one fiscal year, yes? Okay.

And it's right now pulling in something in excess of about $4,000,000 So theoretically, it accounts for the entirety of the structural deficit at that point.

Correct. And one thing I would like to add, again, as we discussed earlier, the sheriff's contract being an uncertainty. In addition to that, any one time projects is not considered here. So if there is any additional part this is just assuming base budget.

Yeah. This is the operating budget. Do you have any kind of background projection that you've made for what this would look like if the UUT were renewed under its current terms?

We've ran those scenarios. What you could assume is the you would have about a $5,000,000 or 4 and a half million dollar deficit in the year twenty thirty, thirty six.

Okay. Is that something that you think you could put into an informational memo for us?

Certainly.

Okay. That'd be really useful. K. Thanks.

Councilmember Mohan.

Thank you, Acting Director Orozco for the presentation. Just a ton of information here. My question was about the proposed budget requests by department. I think the total is about 2,300,000 in one time, about 88,000 recurring. And I think somewhere in the narrative you have said that these the funds to cover these requests are available. And my question is where are they available?

They're currently available through the use of the fund balance, well, through the use of revenues. So these requests is either, let's assume general fund because that's our primary fund. These have been built into the the the budget itself. So if council were to move forward with these projects and the budget as it stands, these would be funded and the city would retain that 31,000 surplus. So, arguably, this is being funded by fiscal year '26, '27 revenues.

'26, 27 revenues, or 25, 26 existing ballots?

No, these particular proposed requests are built into the budget.

Oh, they've already, okay.

That's incorporated in the $109,000,000 Okay.

And a couple of other questions that I could do it later. Would

you like to continue?

Oh, you

forgot them.

Oh, you forgot them? Okay. Well, through the mayor, may may I ask

some Sorry.

Vice Mayor Chao and then Councilmember Wong. Please use the RTS button. I'll see that your hand's raised. Thank you.

Hello. Thank you for the presentation. So you mentioned the highest increase in contract service is a share of contract. But that's still using the old formula of the projects, the CIP plus two. Is that right?

The growth over the course of the forecast uses CPI plus two. However, the new proposed budget assumes the latest proposal from the county, which is an approximate increase of $6,500,000 to $25,500,000 for the total contract.

So the proposed budget now include the $26,000,000 proposed annual cost?

Correct. It's the 25,500,000

Okay. But then that contract is still uncertain.

Correct.

Okay, yeah. And what we are seeing the project forecast is taking into that worst case scenario into account.

Sorry?

For the forecast, that chart you show, does that include the worst case $26,000,000 contract into account?

It assumes that the latest proposal, however, it's not the worst case. Worst case would be the county returns and increases the contract year over year by 15%, which would be what they designated as So their actual

it assumes the latest proposal, but assuming it doesn't have an year to year increase over CIP plus two.

Yeah, the county has indicated that they are not going to limit the contract by a CPI plus 2%. And that's the challenge with this forecast because we can't, we just use that because historically that's what it's been. However, due to the uncertainty, it's difficult to put a dollar value or a rate increase.

Okay. Yeah, thank you. And then for I think I asked in my prep session, I think for the public, it will be nice to know what's our change in terms of the sales tax over the years that's in the budget book. Do you have that handy?

Yeah, that's Yeah, that's in page 56. And that is increasing over the current fiscal year adopted budget of 12,000,000 to about 17,000,000 in the for next year. If you look at the the first chart, actually, yes, it charts leading up to that will provide you a overall increase by major categories including sales taxes, property taxes, and TOT and so forth.

Okay, that's fine. And I'll let Councilmember Wang to go first.

No

problem. Councilmember Wang.

Hey, thanks. I realize how hard it is to put the stuff in the budget as well as an open gov. More of a general question, we get macro views of expenses, line items, revenues, they're all in there. How do we get and drill down to the departmental level? We get FTE counts, but there's nothing deeper than that to understand what's in those budgets. Those budgets are assumed that they're going to hold the same or steady is the assumption, but we don't see that level of detail in the Open Gov.

OpenGov budget does provide us, for instance and let's go to administration, which is the first category. And in that section, you will see the org chart. And then if you go a few pages further in into, let's say page one sixty five, it shows historical FTEs as well as what the budget is funded at.

We get FTEs, yes. But we don't get anything else as to the projects, the programs that are associated with the department. So for example, I mean, I don't know. I'll pick a department. But you might just say finance and AP and you're spending x amount on training or you're spending x amount for something else. Like other than the personnel costs, we don't see any other costs in there. Is there a way to get down to that level? Like I can't tell what public works is spending on, I don't know, trucks. I can't tell what community development spending on permitting fees. So I thought I saw something like that before, so I might be missing something.

We we can take a look at the OpenGov and see if it drills down to the GL account level. Thank

you. Yes.

We will provide a a included in the info memo that detail.

But it seems like everything's holding flat in general on the FTEs. Like we see it at that level and definitely at the macro view and we can see at the expense and revenue side. I was just trying to go a little bit deeper to understand how each department functions. Okay. And then in general, I think when we think about government efficiency, investments in automation, cost efficiency, quality of life, public safety, they seem to be top of mind. On the other ones, I just have a detailed question just on there are things we can remove here too in the request, right? We can make a request to make that removal. But I do want to understand them before we do that. What's the transportation bike pet education and the e bike education numbers that are there?

Give me a brief moment.

I wanna know if it's grant funded or if it's something we're adding to it. It's page I'm sorry about that. I was getting you to a page here. It's other department requests. I don't necessarily see a page, but it looks like 32 on the PDF. And it's line item one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. Transportation bike pet education 88846 and transportation e bike education. Right right above the sustainability intern.

Yes. If you give us a brief moment, Chad Yes.

Take your time.

That works, can answer that question.

And then I'll just queue one another one up as we have a 150% increase in the gift of GOAP, but I think it means gift of hope on page 34 on the budget for the West Valley services. That's 150% increase. Everybody else has gone down except for that, and so I'm just kind curious why that's there, also with the Fremont Union School High School Foundation. So we'll go back to you Chad, I guess.

Yes. Good evening, counsel. Chad Moses, Director of Public Works. With respect to the bike education and the e bike education, all of that is funded through grant funding or there's a little bit that's also Measure B funding as well. There's nothing general planned there at this moment. We have been lucky over the last couple of years to get grant funding for expansive bicycle education.

Got it. Okay. Thank you. I'm just trying to find anywhere we can cut costs at this moment. So I'm looking at the Fremont Union High School Foundation and the West Valley Community Services. Those were increases there from zero to 8,500 for environmental education classroom for the Fremont Union High School District. So I'm not sure why that's I was curious about that and the gift of hope, though it's spelled differently here.

This is for the community funding as provided by the Parks and Rec Commission? Yes. Okay. Give me a brief moment.

But I think Rochelle is Chair is here. Next slide.

Councilmember Wang, this is Gopal, the Chair of the Park and Recreation Commission. I think you said the question is, where is the increase for the West Valley and Fremont? I'm sorry, I didn't hear

Yeah, why the increase for the Valley from 2,000 to 5,000? And then I I did take pay attention to the meeting, and then Fremont Union High School Foundation, why why the $8,500 request for them?

No. I think the the originally they requested for 15 and what we are allocating is only 8,500. It's the first time they have come here and they meet all the criteria because we all the five count five commission members evaluate based on a criteria and all the five cumulative score made them to be in a second place. And we allocated only a partial budget because we didn't have so much budget. If you allocated all of them, the rest of them will not get it. That's why we allocated that.

Did they lose funding from federal sources or state sources? That's why they're coming to us? Or is it a new program on that?

That's a new program on it. So they do have a program on the tube. The details are given already on in detail. But they are for additional one. And the West Valley, I'll just go back. It's earlier they used to ask fifteen and twenty. This time they asked for last year they asked only two. Now they went for five. Originally, a couple of years back, they used to be on the T4, Tier three or four, which is 15 ks. They're now going down because they got a lot of funding from other sources. So they actually came down in the ask.

No, I saw that. I just wanted to make sure people understood why that was an increase in those areas.

Okay. Thank

you. Yield my time to help. I understand. I'll borrow my time. Okay,

so I am next. When we're looking at the Fremont High School District, keep in mind that we are already covering the resource officer at almost a million dollars for that school district. And also when we're looking at rotary, we waived 22,000 in festival fees and have also contributed $3,000,000 I believe to the Mary Villas project. So there's other parts. I kind of feel like we need to revisit the grant program, the policy that we looked at a few years ago, especially as we move forward and deliberate on this one if we have some issues with the requests.

With regards to the vehicles and equipment, that is a request for $890,000 When you go into the public works section, you'll see the actual vehicles that they are requesting there. So once after we've gone through public comment and we come back and we can discuss this some more about that dollar amount and the replacement list question. Okay. I was wondering, when we're looking at law enforcement, are we still including the miscellaneous amount? I do see a revenue of $2,300,000 on page two fifteen.

Is that revenue the old miscellaneous number? I do see a donation of 1.16 that I believe is what I'm referring to. I'm wondering what this other revenue dollar amount is or is that anticipated sheriff payments for special events that aren't in the festival fee waiver category? Sorry I did not notice this before, but I do see we've got 1.16 enforcement donation. That's the old miscellaneous number.

But up above for total revenues, it's a higher number. I'm just curious what that could be coming from. And I can

So some of these are relating to the when local company or like for instance Apple, when they have their event, provide, they provide services and we bill them for those services. You'll see that some of those charges for service built into these other lines.

Okay, okay that's what I was hoping that was for. And in the city work program, I think when this comes back it would help if we know which parts are being either grant funded or measure B funded or if the developer is paying for them such as the budget for the no net loss item, which we have

in

there. I do have a question, don't need the answer right now, but I know that we did spend some money on Danza traffic signal synchronization. And so I would like to offline understand why we are spending more on that. And I am glad to see the Stevens Creek Boulevard has been added. I think that will help quite a bit.

Was looking into festival fee waivers having the sheriff costs directly paid for by the organizations this time, or I know it was unpopular before, but I will assume that it was not. But that is something that we could, because we're having the sheriff's costs increase, we could request that these organizations are paying for it. Did you increase this amount commensurate with the sheriff's contract increase?

No, the rate did not include the latest from my understanding. So we may have to go back and reassess whether it's an appropriate budget amount.

Okay so it might end up a little higher because everything's all gone up in cost.

Mayor, if I may add to that. My understanding is that when the organizations go directly to the sheriff's office, they're quoted a certain number by the sheriff's office which may or may not correlate to our contract. That's the way they currently do it.

Okay, that's interesting. You might wanna look into that. Okay, so that's all for me right now. Next we have Council Member Mohan followed by Vice Mayor. And remember to take yourself off the queue once you've had your turn.

Okay

so I'm still there.

You're still there, okay.

Thought I should take it off before I started talking. My question was about the fund balance and it's page 68, Jonathan, in budget book. So, if you could explain these different categories of fund balance, we are expected to hold at least two months of operating expenditures in a reserve which cannot be touched. Now, obviously, we have other parts where there's fund balance showing. And if you could just walk us through briefly and tell us in this January, which is a huge amount, what we can use, what is locked up.

Certainly. Just go down the list. You have non spendable fund balance. So this is typically your inventory or accounts receivable, something that is tangible or you just don't have access to, however there's a value to it. Restricted funds, these are funds that are restricted or by an outside organization.

So for instance, the PAR Section 115 Trust, although the city invests these funds and can use these funds for pension related expenses, it cannot use it to subsidize the general fund for a CIP project, right? It has a specific purpose. And so that makes up the bulk of that restricted fund balance of $21,900,000. Committed funds, however, are funds that the council has elected to to use for in a certain manner. So for instance, the sales tax payment reserve originally was the the future use or I'm sorry, the the sales tax repayment reserve, which was 74,500,000.

We had set that money aside during the CDTAFA audit. And after the settlement agreement that was released, converted into the future use reserve, at which point the council used $10,000,000 of it for an additional discretionary payment towards a its CalPERS liability or pension liabilities. And then just last December, the council used 2,500,000 of those funds to to conduct an assessment on the city hall renovation project. And so now it's at $124,000,000. The council can have discretion to use those funds for any project it sees fit.

And so it could whether that's the renovation of city hall or another capital improvement program. The however, the economic uncertainty fund, we have a policy in how that is calculated, is two months' worth of expenditures plus a month and a half of revenues. Now does that bind the city from not being able to use that fund? No. However, you want to hold on to these funds for a rainy day.

As of right now, there are sufficient funds sitting in both the sales future use reserve and your unassigned fund balance, which you should use those before you tap into that economic uncertainties fund. Here there is, we don't have anything for assigned fund but this is typically your, any kind of carryovers due to encumbrances. So the city has a contractual obligation to pay a vendor whether it's through a CIP project, you'll see typically see a balance here for that. And then lastly, your unassigned fund balance, which is your most discretionary funds. You can use this for just about anything you'd like.

And that will make up your total of 177.9 or $178,000,000 in projected fund balance for fiscal year twenty five-twenty six.

And the two and a half month reserve is what? Which, is that the future use?

So that's the economic uncertainty fund and that is two months of expenditures plus a month and a half of revenues.

That's 24,000,000?

Yeah, that's what we budgeted. However, if you take a look at our proposed budget in the years thereafter in our forecast, it is formula driven. So depending on the revenues and expenses, it kind of increases over time based off of the anticipated revenues and expenses. So for next year, we have an economic uncertainty fund of $26,500,000.

Okay. So the point I wanted to make here, Amir, was that we have the 62,000,000 sitting in the committed part, which we are not using, and this is over and above any reserve that we are required to hold. Correct. This is something and since this is one time, it could be used for one time needs. And so, sort of I'm suggesting to the council that for large items like the city hall retrofit, this amount is available.

And if you could lock it in some way, we could. But it doesn't make sense to keep postponing the city hall project since the funds are available now. And that's it for now, Mayor. Thank you.

Okay. So I'm in agreement on that. Vice mayor? Yeah.

So let me, just a minute. One. Okay. Yeah. So, is from page, I think, 63 of the budget book.

I'd like to show this to the community because our sales tax before I think I'm still in the aftershock of the sales tax reduction. And it was about 27,000,000, 26,000,000 before COVID. During COVID, there was a boost, but then now we are down to about seventy million. So, it's still about 10,000,000 below our normal sales tax before COVID. So we are having a balanced budget that's because our city really is doing our job of only spending what we have.

I think many other cities are going to tax their residents when there is a shortfall of some sort. So I'd like to commend the city that we do have that impact of at least $10,000,000 then below our normal sales tax. Yeah, so just want to point that out. And then some question about departmental request. I have a question.

So for the traffic light upgrades, I'm just curious how come these ones are not CIP project, but they are like departmental requests? So how do we distinguish between those two? Traffic light sync, traffic light upgrade.

I can briefly answer that. For the transportation and traffic light items, a lot of that is done by our transportation group or the transportation division in house, so that's why it's in the transportation and not necessarily in CIP.

Oh, you mean CIP is when you decide you need additional consultant to perform the work?

Oftentimes, yes.

But this is you will evaluate for all the traffic lights in the city and decide these are the upgrades we need?

Correct. And to a certain extent, our transportation division kind of manages traffic related projects themselves. CIP again is kind of a different animal, although they do similar things.

Okay, I do have to say that the traffic sinking along the Anza is pretty not very good. So could we expect a better sinking of that traffic light? Because when I drive in San Jose, their traffic sinking does a really good job, either east to west or north south.

Yeah, and I guess depends on which direction you're going and what time of day. De Anza is synced very well for certain directions at certain times of day. If you're going the opposite direction, it's not going to work very well for you. All that said, this syncing will enhance the traffic progression on De Anza as well as on Stevens Creek.

Oh, I think when I went in San Jose, it was early morning rush hour, like 09:10 o'clock. And if I go from my ex exit is to 87th Santa Clara and going East east, I many traffic lights, but they are almost always pretty synced. So, and sometimes I, when one exit over, I would be going from south to the north on the 3rd Street, and I was very surprised even that direction it was kind of synced also. And for the answer, my experience usually is when I was rushing to the City Hall around 06:00 from 280 Exit to City Hall. That I think is the direction, that's the rush hour direction.

But I was almost stopped at every traffic light. So, yeah, there is a huge difference.

I can understand that. And keep in mind that that section of De Anza from 280 South does get quite a few cars, probably a lot more cars than 3rd Street in San Jose.

Yeah, those are smaller Street, it's true. But still I think that's a major direction, the traffic jam for Cupertino southbound on De Anza.

To make it sure, we will be focusing on that Okay, with this

so now question is, I'm seeing two items for the sustainability intern, they are reoccurring. So are we going to have sustainability intern? How many of them every year?

We've had a sustainability intern for about five years. We hire an AmeriCorps person. They come in for $25,000 We basically get a full time employee. Finding very good value in that in our sustainability division. Our intent is for the price to continue that until it doesn't make economic sense. And then we may need to remove that and see I'd have to see what additional items would be affected by that loss. But I know a lot of what that person is doing is focusing on our utilities and working with our utility companies to ensure that our rates are appropriate.

So the other one is another. So we have two interim positions. It's the same position.

Yeah, it's just one.

Because there are two items, that's why

The R

25,000 and there is 8,400.

The R1 except the positions, the cost is allocated across multiple divisions.

Oh, I see. Yeah, I think it's good that the city is offering interim positions. So I do support that. I'm just curious about what so is this grant funded or not?

It is not.

Okay.

Part of it is funded

many by other divisions Cupertino offers intern positions?

There are no others within public works.

And the IT and video department sometimes has interns. Do we know? Maybe you can answer afterwards. I do want to understand how we are offering intern, so it's good to learn that we do that for sustainability. But I do want to have overall understanding Have we done that in the past?

And, yeah, thank you. And the next question is about the community funding grant. So, the Freeman Union High School Environmental Education Classroom, maybe I didn't go to read the application. I thought we already have bond major that funds all the classrooms in high school. So, why are they requesting funding? And this is from Fremont Union High School, not from the foundation.

No, this is the foundation request.

So it's foundation.

Foundation request because the school site budget doesn't allow them for it. So they wanted to do the mini grand of 1 k for 15 teachers to do it on the five schools. So the ask is simply, it is not available as part of the school site budget. So the foundation is pitching in and they are putting some money but they were asking us to grant us all. They call mini So

they are

getting the mini grant funding from the city and then giving it to the teachers, but then the teachers would receive it under the Fremont Union Foundation. The city doesn't get any credit.

Yeah, I do not know the details So, on it's this a pass

through donation.

Yeah, I do not know the details. The one they presented is going as a mini grant. I do not know whether the city gets. But these teachers are going and teaching the kids in every school. So there are three teachers per school. So the five Fremont High School Union District Schools are getting this education. So that's where as per the application. I don't know how the city benefits

I think out of the community granting policy says the grant should benefit Cupertino residents. And only two out of the five high school actually have Cupertino residents.

Yeah, so that's one of So, the reasons is this we

benefiting Cupertino?

No, I think that's one of the reasons we didn't fully fund on them, so we partially funded it, assuming it will go to that. So, we haven't put a restriction that it has to go to only the students in the Cupertino. We haven't put that restriction. If you need to put it, it's at the city council's Okay.

And then the question for the gift of hope also. This is a program that also is open for everyone, right? It's not just for Cupertino. And West Valley serves multiple cities.

Yeah, that's the one of the reasons. But the number of participants which gets benefited when we really evaluate, it is compared to the rest of the programs, it is higher. That's one of the reasons that we put in. It's not just for Cupertino residents, I agree. But the number of the evaluation criteria, one of them is how many number of Cupertino residents gets benefited.

Yeah, I guess we really agree that maybe we should look at the grant policy again. As I remember in the beginning, community grant policy was mainly to fund the festivals that's open to the public, so that way you can help smaller organizations to host more festivals. But over the years, it seems there are a lot more other service programs that have been getting funding, rather than having more programs that's open to the entire community, not just specific students who attend this or that school. That's not really open to the community.

Yeah. No, again, I just want to close the thought. So, all of the criteria defined by the city, the Park and recreation department, the eligible criteria is being evaluated by all the five commission members independently. And when it really put together on our what the summary, who really stack rank number one, two, three, four, that's what we put in there. It's not like down. The

ranking is not included in the attachment. So there was only that ranking for the additional

No, there is a community ranking in the sheet

available

The actual to

the

scoring. I guess the scoring was not included. I'm curious how they are scored in.

Yeah, they can include the scoring, the ranking is in the system, the 17.

Okay, thank you.

Sure, thanks.

I'd like to go out for public comment. Madam City Clerk, do we have any members of the public that would like to comment on this item? I'm wondering how many people are online and how many speaker cards do we have?

Mayor, at this time, I have two requests to speak in person, but one is a group. I believe four or five people. So that could be, I think, up to ten minutes for this group and then another speaker cards. That's thirteen minutes. And at this time, I do not see any hands raised virtually.

Okay. So we'll give eight minutes to the group and three minutes individually. Thank you.

Okay. So at this time, we will welcome Arif and your group, followed by Connie Cunningham.

Good evening, excuse me. Good evening mayor and council members. My name is Arav Sheikh and I'm a Cupertino resident. I'd like to begin by expressing my sincere appreciation for the council and the city staff for the work that you all do. While going through the proposed budget, I quickly realized the many facets and complexities you all deal with.

So thank you for your service. Your work ensures our city remains a vibrant place to live, which is why I want to highlight one specific line item on the proposed budget that is so vital to our community's well-being. I'm here tonight joined by three fellow Cupertino residents and a community member to speak in support of the $1.50 k budget allocation for the noise abatement at Memorial Park. We play pickleball at Memorial Park pretty much every day and we have seen the profound impact firsthand. It's where players schedule their chores and doctor's appointment around the court times.

It's where players recharge before and after a long workday. It's where those who have lost loved ones find solace and community. At last week's meeting, we all heard from speakers from all walks of life, spanning every age, ethnicity and background, all expressing the profound impact this pickleball community has on their lives. For many, this isn't just a game, it's much more than that. Pickleball serves as a multigenerational bridge for our society, for our for our city.

It's where eight year olds and the 80 year olds play on the same coat. It's one of the few places and perhaps the only place in Cupertino where every demographic truly and actively participates and connects. This is in line with mayor's initiatives focused on physical activity and community. I applaud the mayor for that. Pickleball delivers on both.

Having said that, our nearby neighbors are living with pickleball noises and the applied deserves recognition and consideration. Hence, following through with the planned sound barriers is the most logical and the reasonable step. At $1.50 k, this is a small but a high impact investment for thousands of community members. The math is simple, at least in my mind. We have thousand plus members in our club who are not just playing the game, they are active participants in our local community, in our local economy as well.

They are buying gases, groceries, dining at our local restaurants, grabbing a quick bite, drinks at cafes, and shopping at our stores. They're spending at least $200 a month. If you do the math, it translates to thousand times 200 times 12, it's about 2,400,000 annually. And that also means that the city is generate is getting tax revenue approximately 25 k. The way I see it, the city will recoup the capital investment in less than five, six years.

Not to mention the goodwill that the city and you all will get from the small business owners, community members, as well as our neighbors. I would also like to add that many of the players support the senior center. They participate in everything from tai chi to bridges to the outings. They're basically supporting cities, initiatives, and many programs. Speaking as residents and community members, pickleball benefits us physically, socially, and mentally. But more importantly, it supports Cupertino's economy and brings the community together. Therefore, we urge you to approve the one fifty k lying atom for the noise abatement project at Memorial Park. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we will welcome Connie Cunningham. And, as a reminder to members of the public wishing to speak on this item should raise their hand virtually or submit a request to speak card in the next four and a half minutes or before the end of Connie's time. Welcome, Connie.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Connie Cunningham. I am a member of the housing commission, but I am here tonight speaking for myself only. I would like to turn your attention tonight to the critical budget commitments to vulnerable low income residents.

The general plan makes it clear that Cupertino intends to, excuse me, support all residents. The housing element specifies sites and policies for providing housing to all incomes and abilities. There are two issues in the budget. One is that there are revenue grants called federal revenue grants under a specific title, CDBG. What that revenue cut means is that we have well over $100,000 may reach up to $300,000 that the federal government has given to the city in the past, which they now do not.

That has to be refilled. And backfilling it through city funds is the most logical way to do that. That is revenue funds that are being cut. The other is that excuse me the slow replacement of BMR rental homes under our housing element. By the end of the housing element period, most of our existing below market rate rental units will mature out of the system.

Many residents will be displaced because it is highly unlikely at the current rate that current applicants are building below market rate housing that we will replace those rental units. With the housing element and the no net loss law, we're caught between state requirements to build and lack of funding support for developers of low income housing. Site availability has been replaced by a funding problem. Developers say they cannot get financing. Budget cuts impact our vulnerable residents the most.

I urge council to support our vulnerable residents to ensure our city provides housing and services for low, very low, and extremely low income residents. Our city general plan with a housing element eloquently state the city's commitment to all residents. The charter of the city's housing commission is focused on below market rate housing. I urge the city to use city funds to replace the federal revenue grants, and I urge the city to do research on funding techniques that will fill this hole left by banks and other conventional lenders. Please find a way to provide funding for developers to provide low income, below market rate rental housing.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Connie. And mayor, I don't see any hands raised virtually, so that concludes the request to speak on this item.

All right, thank you. I don't know if this is a new hand raise from the Vice Mayor, but I do have you listed there. I will speak No for a one online. I have a couple of requests. Please.

Okay. So, page 71, I'm hoping that you could add the 12% for the transient occupancy tax amount. I think that will help just to have that figure there. And we have this pages 73 to 78. It's development information that the subcommittee had already requested that that be removed.

And just as a reminder, I served on the audit committee subcommittee for budget format review. So it's very interesting to see the new layout and what OpenGov provided. There's, as you've seen, there's some areas that it needs to be tightened up on with regards to the formatting. I would like to see graphics for the charts on page 83 to 84, and perhaps offline I can ask for some other ones there. So we had a few more graphical images in our prior budget, and I've been looking at Milpitas's budget, for instance.

And so they show a chart similar to this one with this data, but they have it in a graphical form, which I think might be for some of us easier to understand. Then lastly, I marked pages forty one and forty two for some reason. Oh, yeah, so perhaps I can get this information offline as well. On page 41, you have revenues right up top of 1,800,000, and then you have use of money of 8,000,000. And on the next page, you have use of money and property of about 9,900,000, which turns out to be the exact addition of that revenue number from 41 in use of money.

If you could explain to me offline or if you already know what the answer is for why it's broken out that way. So I'm going to assume that page 41 is what OpenGov kicked out, and then I don't know how page 42 was generated.

You're correct. So the page, the chart on page 41 is compiled by OpenGov based off of the data it's pulling together. So as you can see, it's a bit more, it has a bit more detail to it, whereas the table on 42 is an internally developed chart, which we do plan on eventually migrating over to OpenGov. So, the formatting may change a little bit in the next iteration as far as the budget.

Okay.

Or with the adopted budget.

Thank you. And if you could define what the difference is at some point between the use of money and then the plain revenues amount, like what's the difference there? And are we giving up anything? Because I don't when I look at the special revenue fund plus enterprise funds and internal service funds, that doesn't, I don't, that's not going to add up to the 1,800,000. Those three don't account for it.

And then you've got the general fund amount is 8,500,000 which doesn't connect to the 8,000,000 even. So that's, I think this is a level of detail that probably needs to be looked at separately, but it seems like we're going to lose some. If abandon this table on page 42, which I hope we don't, we're going to lose some of that extra data, I think.

No, we don't plan on removing this chart. It's just it might be integrated into OpenGov's platform, so the formatting may look a little different. However, the information will remain the same.

Okay, all right, thank you. And I do want to again thank you for the help that you provided going over the budget. Last year I believe it was just being able to do spot checks like transfers in need to balance with your transfers out and how to track charges for services and cost allocation and to be able to take the revenue category and the appropriation category and try to follow the money through there. I know it's pretty complicated but that part's very helpful and hopefully during one of our Budget and Bite meetings in the future we'll be able to get to that chart and have a whole deep dive lesson into that. I think it'll help a lot of people and I could certainly use a refresher that would help.

So with regards to the Fremont Union High School receiving the funds and some of that money going to outside, That would be one that I personally am not supportive of. Also because the rotary is already receiving festival fee waiver of 22,003 million dollars for Mary Avenue Villas. We're covering their sheriff's cost on their festival that I didn't think that we were providing grants and festival fee waivers. I thought you could have one or the other, not both. So that again goes into the grant policy.

But I know we worked on it. The vice mayor and I were on that subcommittee a few years ago. I feel like it does need to be revisited. And if the city manager could let us know how to set that up to get that subcommittee going again and then also getting the festival fee waiver one restarted, I think that would help.

Yeah, Mary, if there's interest in forming the subcommittee for a few months to hash it out, can either do it now or at the time when you're approving budget in June.

Okay, so just make a motion that the subcommittee be formed with, I don't know if the vice mayor's interested in, since we worked on this previously. So it was, the last time we formed it, it was the, we had, I think it was the chair and the vice chair of the Parks and Rec Committee, Commission was part of it. But we met with them.

I don't think they were part of it, but

They were, they did participate in one of the meetings that we held, okay. But they could be, they could participate in that. So I would move that we form, reform the grant policy and the festival fee waiver policy subcommittee with myself and the vice mayor.

And you're forming this as an ad hoc committee for the council?

There's a second here.

Okay. Can we do that under this agenda topic?

I think so. I think we're in the middle of working through the budget so it would make sense.

Okay.

Madam City Clerk, will you please let us vote with our

lights? Can I ask a quick clarification question? Sure. What exactly would the subcommittee be doing?

We would be reviewing the current grant policy and looking at some of the questions that have come up with regards to having funds that would be leaving the city. So in the Free Fremont Union High School District, even though they've cut it back, that would be funding that's going to go outside. And do we feel that that, we would bring up a policy suggestion to the whole council to review. And then also with regards to festival fee waivers, we could talk about with the sheriff's cost increase, do we think that we should be covering that? Things of that nature. Just policy recommendations.

Okay, and this is something that we're not really eliminating any of this. We're just coming back with better information after the subcommittee meets. Correct, but if the, that would be

a separate issue at this time. If there's not support for some of these items, then I would think that that could be something that we're discussing, but we're not setting the budget tonight. We would simply be talking about it and sharing our point of view.

Okay, good.

Yes. To clarify, so any policy recommendation that will come back to the council will apply to the next year, right? They won't apply to the policy for this year. Yeah. However, the council at our discretion can still make an adjustment of the recommendation made by Proxima Rec in our budget adoption, so regardless of the policy recommendation.

So, as a subcommittee, any policy recommendation will be only used by proxy rec to review application for next year, or by the city staff to implement the festival next year, right? Correct. We're not changing it mid term in May for the June budget.

Correct, correct. And that in the past we have done that where there have been recommendations that were made and I think this is probably why we had the chair and the vice chair. I remember we met in, I believe we were in Quinlan, with Director Sander and it's frustrating for the Parks and Rec Commission to spend a lot of time going through and making their selections and then have the council go and change it. So we had them present, so they had their input too so that we could help avoid this from happening in the future and so that we're all on the same page when the next group of applicants come through because they want to follow and they are following the rules that we're setting. But if we're changing things up, I understand their frustration.

Through the mayor, a quick clarification.

Please. So

in a thirty second description, you're saying the subcommittee is for future policy. And we're also saying we can still make changes this year to the budget that we need to, but not through the committee.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

And that's the same, by the way. You can go line by line if you don't agree with the, and I don't, the $890,000 for vehicle replacement every year. That's a huge, huge number. We can go through and say, well, can have half of that for instance. And if there's other things, I know you mentioned some of the bicycle education. If that doesn't sound like something you're interested in, then you can simply talk about that and make that suggestion if you're seeing things that you aren't

But to be clear, today's just a study session.

Correct.

And we can't take action on these items. Correct. Thank you.

Just to clarify, we, for some of the items staff proposed, we can voice some opinion, or maybe we can direct that to the city manager to see if there are options for reducing some of the items, and that may be brought back in June when we adapt to see, okay, if that's something the whole council would agree on or not, right? Does that make sense?

That's a really good point, especially with the vehicle replacement that we probably need To to understand understand the the

staff. Yeah,

yeah. Okay. Council Member Mohan.

Yeah, just again on the same topic. We're not changing part of the subcommittee action for this year's, for this budget that we are deliberating on. We're not. So, if anything, the subcommittee will look at the recommendations of the Parks commission for these community funding grants?

No, I think the subcommittee won't look at the recommendation for this year. That's not the purpose. The committee will look at community we have a policy, community funding grant policy. I think we will look at how the parks and rec is interpreting the policy when they do the criteria ranking, and maybe try to see if maybe there's some misunderstanding or we want to emphasize something in the policy for next year. Yeah. Okay, so it's But we're not not this making any specific change to the recommendation for this year.

Okay.

Thank you. And going back to like the vehicle replacement request that maybe I need a second to direct staff on this to, if there are some requests that perhaps we might have a list of that we need to have more information as to why they want so much money for something. So I did ask that question with regards to Danza, the traffic signal synchronization. We had some signal timing type of an item which we had already funded in the past. So I was surprised to see this showing up again.

So that would be like an informational memo. I'd like to understand why we're seeing that. With the vehicle replacement, I'm curious what the vehicle replacement policy is. And how does ours compare to other cities that might have fiscal constraints as well. Are we replacing our vehicles at a faster rate than other cities? Can we slow some things down? That type of question. Would I need to have a second on that to have those questions answered?

I don't think so. I think this is a time for the council to anybody who chooses to, to suggest something to staff that they'd like to have looked into regarding the budget.

Mayor I just want to clarify, is this an info memo request?

That would be fine but it would be information we're gonna need before we have the budget come back. So a little advance. For next year? No, for this, yeah. So with regards to otherwise, I could offer up that hey, no you don't get $890,000 you can have $400,000 this year. But I would rather have information letting me know why or why not that would be a good idea or not. Sure.

You like me to see if the director of public works might have information at comparative data that you looked for? Otherwise InfoMemo is doable before June.

A little comparison would be helpful to see what the replacement timeline is for cities as well. And with that, I do see Vice Mayor, your hand is still up. Do have a question? Okay. And then I see Councilmember Mohan followed by Councilmember Wong.

Okay, so my question is about the community grant. So this is the page I think it's recommended for funding. I have a question about this rotary club one for Pollinating Garden and McLellan Ranch Park. So this will be worked out in a city park. Is that part of an existing program that the city is already doing?

No, this is part of the existing park, but city is not doing that. So, Rotary is pitching in to do that.

Have we approved for this additional work done by a third party?

I do not know, council member. They are working with the park and department staff. Sorry.

I can help with this one. Please.

Sorry. So

this is actually being done by our grassroots ecology group that is tasked to do these kind of gardens within the McClellan Ranch area to take over the different areas that have, like, outside grass growing or something like that. They take all the non native plants out, and then they're creating pollinator gardens in some of these areas. And Grassroots has asked Rotary to work with them. So they're not working with the city. It's already an area that Grassroots is doing, which we have a contract.

City has a contract. Does contract with grassroots ecology, which the city is paying for. Yes. And now the city is paying rotary to work with grassroots ecology.

That's That was part of the ask, and Parks and Rec Commission did.

That's kind of odd. Why is the CT paying rotary to work with our own

contractor? Again, council of course has the ability to decide whatever they would like but the recommendation did come from Parks and Rec Commission.

It's just a kind of odd thing. Okay. I do want to comment on the Cupertino symphonic band. I'm happy to see that they are funded. A I tried to attend almost every of their concerts this year. I haven't attended before. In every concert I have attended, maybe I think they do that in every concert, they would announce beginning that they are thankful for the grant provided by the city. So, announce that every time. It's very well attended, and I love their music choice. So, I'm happy to see that we continue to support this really wonderful program.

And it is a program that creates activity that anyone can attend in the city. So, that's the kind, I think, the kind of program I would like to see community grant fund that everyone in the community can attend, not just some people who are in a specific area. Yeah. The other programs I know I have attended the AAPM Multicultural Festival last year. It was very well attended.

But the other programs that have been funded last year, I don't think I have ever received any invitation from them for us to attend their program, or maybe I'm not have the city's help send out any e notice for this program that we actually fund. So it feels like all this program already funded us from last year. We are not helping them to public ize, or they are not even reaching out to the council members to attend. That might be something they should do.

But they did not apply.

I mean, no, I'm not saying AAPI, I mean all the other programs. There's all these other the I don't know, elder aid. I mean, the ones that's not applied, that's fine, but I'm just curious what they are. We actually funded them, but we didn't I don't really know what are they. Like the ITALented I SPARC program, what's that?

Fit the Needs program. What's the dental treatment program? Yeah, so I'm just curious. And there is this STEAM outdoor education. I know VIA. VIA is for special needs children, so likely we are not invited, but it will be nice to still get the information from here is their outdoor education program that they are doing, and are they recognizing the city's funding in their outreach? That's the thing, I don't know. Yeah. Okay, just my comment.

Thank you. Council Member Mohan?

Yeah, so my question was again about the community funding. You know, in the big scheme of things, I just wanted to say this 32,000 is a fairly reasonable amount to fund all these various organizations that are really our partners in the different events that we that the city participates in. So, I would be reluctant to cut any funding for these groups. And if you look at it, it's fairly reasonable. The Parks Commission has done some has used some criteria and decided not to fund several organizations fully.

So I would be reluctant to cut even more from some of these organizations.

Thank you. Council Member Wong.

Well, I guess since we're going into the detail level, I had one quick request and it's just only because we had the numbers here on the proposed book on page eighty nine and ninety. You have the information and insights already for the general fund revenue. You have the population. You'll be fun to have the ratio if you can. So I mean we're sitting at something about $1,600 per revenue per per citizen. And it's interesting to see the difference between us and maybe Palo Alto or San Jose. So it's just good to have the ratio numbers in there.

Pardon. Council Member Wong, I believe you're going by the PDF page from the online.

Oh, pardon me.

I'm on the PDF page. It's easier.

Does it have the actual

There's no ratio, but it says like

The page number so we can

Oh, it doesn't have it's 83. 83. Sorry about that. Page eighty three and eighty four on the actual book numbers. And Okay. I'm just looking for ratios. That's all. I mean it's it's already there. So it helps to understand how we're doing in comparative on the revenue side. It helps us understand the sales tax gap. It also helps us understand what we can deliver for our residents in terms of quality of life based on the revenue we have.

Okay. So thank you. And that could be done in a chart form as well, bar graphs?

Yeah, you can do Pareto graphs, see where we sit.

I'm seeing, so this goes from the revenue comparison chart into But point of order.

Sure. We have a motion that has not been voted on.

Oh, thank you. Madam City Clerk, will you please set us up so we can vote with our screens here?

Subcommittee.

Oh is this a subcommittee?

Yes. Can you repeat the motion just so we know?

This is to form a subcommittee comprising of mayor Moore and vice mayor Chao to re review the grant policy and the festival fee waiver policy.

For 2027 and 2028, correct? Just want make sure that's clear.

The motion carries with Fruin voting no.

All right, thank you. So if I may go back to page 83, we jumped from 83, the general fund revenue comparison with other jurisdictions to the contribution schedule. Usually I'm seeing this type of a page done in like a chart form with you'll have your sales tax and property tax, all of that kind of in the chapter together. So if can talk offline on this to see about getting it grouped together so we can have a little visual section. I'm thinking about what I saw in the Milpitas budget and I thought it was pretty well done and they they broke out how your property tax was distributed and your sales tax was distributed.

And I know that we've got more information in here this time around, which I do really appreciate. I'm not who is who really has their hand up to speak, but I do see Councilmember Wong followed by the

We can't get off queue because we need to clear the vote on the RTS. So if you clear the vote, can then get off. But I do have a comment. Given all the hard work that's been done here, I I would really encourage you to submit yourself for the Open Gov High Performance Awards, please. Because there's a lot of work that was done here and might be a chance to get some recognition for the city for your hard work.

Thank you and vice mayor. Okay. May I speak while you're getting set up? Sure. Okay.

On page four, you mentioned the historical society fee waivers. That's ongoing commitment of $40,000 and the $5,880 for book sales, Friends of the Cupertino Library. And then we also have the $5,000 I believe for the chamber. So that, if there was a way, you might need like a summary page to show that, show this ongoing funding that we also have. And perhaps even the sister city funding could be summarized.

Think you might need one more page in order to provide a summary. So particularly with sister city funding, you've got staff time, gifts, the fee waivers so that we can understand the whole picture. I had asked that to be, because it is under city council, to be information that would be there. I don't know if that got into the OpenGov version this year for sister cities. Was it broken out?

I don't think so. No. Okay, so they just have a little brief information. So we started to expand the sister cities section in the past budget book. So either add it, we could either add it at the sister cities page or at a high level where you're talking about the nonprofit support opportunities.

I don't know where, I kind of feel like it fits better there at the nonprofit area than putting it on the sister cities page. But if we could add that information as well so that members of the public get a complete picture of how much we're contributing.

And

yeah, saw it, but we added more which showed put the festival fee waivers and the room, you get free room use. There's a little bit more information we started adding before that OpenGov scrapes scrapes off. Off. And I think staff follows what I'm saying there, no problem. Okay, Vice Mayor? And we have an 08:00 closed session so we're coming up on that, but we're doing pretty well with our time. Vice Mayor. Okay,

first I just, for the benefit of the public, I thank for mentioning this comparison table with other jurisdictions. I think that's really good. It's on page, I think, 90 of the PDF. So, yeah, it'll be nice to have a chart. And I do have a question about reading our community grant funding policy, there should be an annual report from each recipient.

So, where can I find the report? Maybe we can read more about what they have done. My question would be about also how much the city is helping them to, maybe Michelle can help answer, how much does the city help them advertise the community funding program and are they required to put city logo on their flyers?

Yeah so for the submitting a written report, the Parks and Rec Commission does get an actual presentation from the groups with their reports and the reports are turned into staff. So all of that can be found within the Parks and Rec Commission. I believe the reports are in August or it's in the fall. And then obviously all of the applications if you want to know more about what they're actually asking for are in March and April of the Parks and Rec Commission. Yeah.

As for city logos and stuff, we do have agreements with them all now. So yes, they can use the city logo in their marketing and if they reach out to the city needing help, then of course we help them. But they don't have to reach out to the city for help if they don't want our help marketing it. A lot of them aren't events anymore if you kind of notice a lot of them are more like helping with certain programs that are already put on.

I guess my question is are they required to use city logos so it's clear it's a city funded program.

Even if we're only for funding a portion of it, they're supposed to put the city logo on their marketing.

Do they give the flyer to the city to review?

We don't always get the flyer. No.

Oh, so we don't really know if they actually put the logo out or not?

I mean, they've signed an agreement to do it. I would hope they're doing it. I don't really want to, you know, speak ill of these nonprofits, but

Okay.

I don't necessarily have them in my inbox to double check.

Great. Just want to mention, I started attending Cupertino Symphonic Band because they emailed the city council to invite us to attend. That's how I started attending. I actually wasn't attending before. So it's nice if those organizations do reach out so that we can learn more about the services, the wonderful services that they provide with the city funding to our community.

Yeah, when we meet with the subcommittee, I think it'd be great if we can add stuff like that to the policy and or know about it so we can add it to the agreement because that would be very

helpful Maybe they for didn't think about. Yeah. Possible. Yeah. So thank you. Mhmm.

Alright. Next I see council member Mohan followed by council member Wong. Quick comment on the Cupertino symphonic band. When I attended, I know how grateful they are, and you mentioned that as well, Vice Mayor. But they also use these funds to replace the to actually purchase the instruments that they use.

They've been borrowing it from schools, and so this enables them to have their own instruments, and I think it's wonderful that we are a part of that. My other question was and I don't know if this is even the appropriate time to ask for it. One of the things I've always felt, Mayor, is that we don't really have a multi year policy to upgrade some of the restrooms in the city parks. And I brought it up last year, and there was just no funds available. But again, this would be a one time request.

And if public works or parks sort of spreads it over maybe five years or six years, seven years, we could at least have a restroom renovation program maybe do one a year just because they are really some of them are in bad shape, and I don't know. I hope the department agrees with me on that. But anyway, I just wanted to bring that up. That would be a good thing for us to do because we have a fund balance which we should be using for maintenance related projects.

Thank you. Councilmember Wong.

Yes, haven't been in some of those toilets. They're slightly better than squat toilets. So I would agree with you there, Councilmember Mohan. I also agree that 32,500 is not too much, but I think it's important that it is spent on Cupertino residents. And that's, you know, in quality of life. Think that's a very important piece. There I'll take this time to lobby my fellow council members here. There's some missing items here we probably should put in here on fire safety, fire evacuation routes, traffic improvements that I think the public is sensing very urgently. And I don't I'll try to make a proposal later by email to make some suggestions. But there are things we can do to at least help with the people on the West Side, especially in the high very high fire districts.

I think that's an important thing. I think it's going to be a big issue all the way into the election cycle because it's an important piece that people are worried about their safety, their ability to get insurance, their ability to maintain their ability to live there given the high costs that are there. And it's truly a quality of life issue and more importantly, it's a safety issue. So I'm happy to work with any of the council members here to only one, I believe, so that I can work out a plan to see who wants to help out on that. But I think it's very important that people on the West Side keep hearing that. I've met with many residents over the last three weeks on this issue.

I'd be happy to work with you on that.

Alright. Accept. It'd be great.

Vice mayor. Yeah. So, I remember every year we have a staffing level historical chart in the budget book, but I didn't find it. Maybe it's there. There is like a staffing level chart. You can just tell me later, that's fine.

We do have a personnel schedule in the appendix at the end of the book on page five twenty eight and five twenty nine.

Pardon, through the manager, we'll be getting an update on vacancies as well at the next meeting. But that's okay.

So, what I see is this. But I think in the past, there was a chart, like how many staff we have each year, and it goes back to like twenty years.

Yeah, you might be referring to the chart that we also have in the Budget at a Glance. It's more of a visual We do provide that.

Yeah, it was in the budget in the glance usually. But I think it's also usually in the budget book too. So, can we add that?

We're happy to include that in

the That's budget good information to have. And then, also, for the parks, think about regarding the comment about the bathroom, I think when we adopted the parks and rec master plan in 2019, And then, the staff worked on an implementation plan for that parks and rec plan. So, that's supposed to we are supposed to be implementing each part of that. So, does that plan include I think there were like playground replacement every year we have been doing that. And does that also include bathroom replacement upgrade as part of our parks and rec master plan.

Is Rochelle still here?

If you'd like, we can include that. Oh, she's she's coming up. This

is really more of a a Chad thing, but we have been doing the playground replacements, but they are usually equipment, not the restrooms.

Just the restroom.

Yeah. And then the other piece was the playground amenities, but that's also usually benches, trash cans, fun tables, stuff like that, not the restroom.

Bathroom wasn't part of the plan? No. And have we done any condition assessment for these bathrooms? Maybe there's a chat question.

I don't think so.

It doesn't look like anything

you So said didn't do any condition assessment to know how old they are, and they need to be updated.

I think most of them are in pretty good condition. I know the two at Memorial, like, they just fixed the fixtures and pipes and stuff like that. So they have been doing things to make sure they're still up to date and not just going to break apart. But I don't think they've done an actual assessment plan.

Okay so maybe Chad has something to add.

Just briefly, like Rochelle was saying, we maintain the restrooms currently. We paint them, keep them in relatively good condition, but we have not gone in and replaced equipment or sinks or anything in a long time. We do minor repairs when things break or need to be fixed, but we are doing paint and other things to keep things.

Do we have like a long term plan of here is we need to replace it every ten years and this is scheduled for

the bathroom?

We are replacing, like I said, equipment within the bathrooms when they need to be replaced. We're kind of trying to keep them going as long as possible and then we'll replace them when absolutely necessary. That's part of our maintenance. But we don't have a renovation plan currently in place for any of the restrooms.

Okay. Thank you. So we do need to move on to our closed session, which is in the other building. Do we have any burning statements that must be made at this point? Or we can Okay. So at that point, we're all set. This May 11 special meeting of the Cupertino City Council is adjourned.