City Council - Special Meeting

Oh, hey. Good afternoon and welcome to our uh special city council meeting Wednesday, May the 13, 2026. Uh Mr. Clerk, can you please take the role?

Thank you. Council member Torres Walker is absent. Council member Wilson is absent. Council member Roachcha is here. Mayor Prom Freighus is present. Mayor Bernell here. Thank you. We have a quorum at 4:00 p.m. Thank you. Will you please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with all. All right. So, uh today's uh meeting is for the purpose of discussing uh fiscal year 2627 budget development. Uh there's going to be a a couple of items on this. One is going to be a continuation of uh yesterday's study session and then uh in addition to that is um some further budget development. So, I will turn this over to our acting city manager, Cortez, to lead us off.

Yes. Uh, good afternoon, mayor and city council. Uh, so before you uh today will be the proposed fiscal year 2026 2027 operating budget. Uh, the this presentation provides an overview of the city's proposed revenues, expenditure, staffing, and key operational priorities for the upcoming fiscal year. Uh staff is requesting feedback and direction from city council uh regarding the proposed budget and any priorities or adjustments uh the city council would like staff to consider. Uh at this time I will have finance director uh Don Merchant present the the budget for you. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Um uh good afternoon uh mayor and city council. I'm not sure if you have a preference to go over last night's that got continued first or to do the other funds. Um let's let's go ahead and start with the other funds first and then we'll go back to last night's afternoon.

And then um additionally um we had been requested before for an update on the staffing and the budgeted cost. So um we have prepared that and provided you the information at the dis for that when we get to that section. So then we will start with the other funds um which is the remaining funds outside of the general fund. It is the enterprise funds, recreation, animal services, street light and landscape districts. Um I will just say on the recreation fund if we can once we get to those sheets kind of push that to the last um director Wright is in another meeting and so he doesn't he he'll be a little bit late to this so any questions we'll have to hold off and wait until um he is present at the meeting. Um so with that on attachment A is the draft budget worksheets. Again we'll skip through recreation for now. That goes through page six. Um, and then we get to the animal services budget which is on page seven of the attachment. So, if there's any questions on this and we do have the police chief and um, Captain Bitner present for any questions. Um, on there I've outlined some of the variances in terms of other revenue that was donation revenue received in fiscal year 26. And then uh for 2627 the personnel costs are rising 26%. That's because there are vacancy savings in fiscal year 2526 currently. And then the expenditures are dropping 19% because fiscal year 26 includes the spending of that donation revenue expected to be done by June 30th. So that's why that drops because of spending that 118,000 in donation revenue. Um, so if there's any questions, um, we have staff here to address it or we can move.

I I do, um, I appreciate when we have each of the sections that we have organizational chart that delineates the the staffing, but we didn't have one for for at least I don't have one for animal services. So can can you tell tell the the council how the organizational chart works by classifications? Well, there is the animal services manager position and then there's an animal services supervisor under that and then we have the doctor of veterinary medicine. We have registered veterinary techs, animal control officers and there's an office assistant. So, how So, we have obviously one one manager, one supervisor,

one supervisor, one one vet. There's one vet. Yes. Okay. And that's a that's a permanent employee or a contract? A permanent employee. Employee. And the So, there's 12 full-time positions budgeted to animal services. So, there's three animal control officers, one office assistant. I believe it's two registered vet techs. Yes. Okay. Um And I believe there's, if you look at the sheet, the big chart they gave us, oh, if you look at the back page, it shows animal services. I guess there's three positions. Yeah, if you go all the way to the back. Okay. I Yeah, I haven't looked at I'm kind of corresponding the two. Oh,

when I look at the U spreadsheet that was provided to us. Thank you very much. Because it's very it's a nice visual. It has big font so we can read it. Um, so it looks like there's three. Is there four positions? I I see animal services um manager one 1.0. I I see animal control officer. There's two positions that they're vacant. Yes, they're vacant. And then I see on this last page animal services technician. Yes, I left that position out. I apologize. So, so those are the four positions that are vacant. Yes. Okay. And and there's 12 How many positions are there actually? 12.

There's 12 budgeted positions and then 0.10 one zero of the police chief since the police department oversees the animal services.

Okay. So the question one of the other questions I had Miss Merchant it deals with the current service charges for FY26 it's approximately 157 but uh FY27 it's 152 are um I guess my question are we current should we be looking at raising them keeping them? Well, some of the fees were um proposed to be increased in the user fee study that was evaluated last night, just a small section. Um I um I'm not sure I I had all the departments evaluate impacts it could potentially be and um

there wasn't a a huge swing that they thought would be impactful to, for example, some of the police department fees and this, but there were some fees that were raised. So what we went through last night with the fees that has not been incorporated. No, it has not. Um just because one we had to get council weigh in on that and so you know I will have animal services further evaluate if the rates are adopted on the 26th what if any impact that will have on the fiscal year 26 because I think your narrative yesterday if we had approved everything it was an increase of $1.8 million.

Yes. with the with those the majority of those fees coming though from community and economic development and what it will result in if animal services say animal services they increase it 5,000 it'll reduce the subsidy to animal services by 5,000 the transfer out in the general fund and so in transferred in the general fund we're going from approximately 2.4 to 2.8 8 $400,000 is what is that attributable to? Uh projecting that it will be staffed completely. Yes. Okay. Because under under uh let's see personnel number two, it says the vacancy savings. So I'm assuming that's part of the difference,

right? And so there is a little bit of vacancy savings built into 26 um 27. There's a couple months, I believe it's outlined here on the notes for um the animal services manager. Um you know, but of course there's always the goal for the remainder to get those filled by um June 30th. So

So we we've we've heard a lot from folks that have come up and made comments about animal services and how important it is to maintain Antioch services. what w with the the vacancies, the um the manager, the the two officers, and then the um the tech, what what will that do? It's probably a question for the chief. What will that do to the level of service if those four positions were filled? Like how are we going to see folks say, "Wow, this is such a better experience because my understanding is we're running at capacity right now." Um, obviously the the officers could be out in the field maybe more doing more field work, but what would be the what will we see if these were all for filled?

Definitely an increase in services across the city, especially outside of the building. Um, we just had acco um to try to fill those vacancies and I heard there was a fantastic pool of candidates. Um, our one acco that we have now is splitting time between her acco duties and supporting the staff inside the building, supporting the vacant positions inside the building. So I think when you talk about what service looks like, service, yes, out in the community, out in the public with the animals that people come into contact with out in the public, but also what shelter care looks like, shelter cleaning, shelter upkeep, maintenance, taking care of the animals, making sure the spaces are ready for the animals in there and that the RVTs and the vet have everything they need um to take care of the animals as well. So when you're working with a a lower staff, especially with ACOs's, they're kind of splitting the bill where they're regular duties outside in the public, public facing, dealing with the animals, but also supporting the staff inside um because of the vacant positions. So yes, if we are able to fill these four vacancies and I think we're off to a good start, we're rolling, especially with a good round of interviews today, I would hope to see the service improve in those areas.

Okay. And then there's been mention of spay and neuter. um offering to the community. We we don't do that in our animal services. Is that true? Yes and no. Um we try to supplement it a lot with our nonprofit partners uh and a lot of the people that partner with animal services to get it done at a reduced rate uh as well as go outside um through VA a voucher program and through sponsorships to have it done outside of the building. Does our vet do spay and neuters though um herself as part of her day-to-day operations? Yes, she does. Okay. So, that's not that we don't do it. And then there was also a comment about the county that they used to offer that service to the city of Antioch and they stopped doing it. Are you aware of of what what that's about?

I don't feel comfortable speaking to anything the county does. Uh as far as services they provide. Okay. Okay. That's fine. So,

I do want to talk about spay and neuter though. Uh I mean, the majority of the speakers keep on bringing this issue back again and again and again. What does that look like, you know, from their perspective? I mean, it's it's like, okay, we have it. You're giving discounts. I mean, I'm not sure I understand what this whole issue is. So, I think it depends on who you ask what their particular issue is. Uh, if the shelter is at capacity every day, um, you you can only do so many surgeries a day, whether it be spay or neuter, whether it be uh routine animal care. Um, and then you have to also think about available beds, available kennels for an animal posture

surgery. Um, if you're always at capacity, that number is always fairly low. So, approximately how many spay neuters do we do a year? Uh, I would fall. I'd have to come back with that answer.

I mean, I I think that we need to get our hands around this issue between what we have and what is being requested just so that we understand it better. Yeah, it appears as though animal service advocates that have been speaking yesterday and pray and prior, there seems to be some disagreement amongst the group of um advocates. One side saying we don't do something and the county does and then on the other side the county doesn't do anything and and we need more help. So I I think um I think there's some mis uh maybe some misunderstandings too about conversations about what the county does and what Antioch does and what our taxpayers dollars. What do we get from that that goes out to the county? What do we get in return? Some of that may have been taken to that somehow we're closing animal service shelter and looking to sell it. you know that kind of I don't know where that came from but that seems to be a a perception by some but that hasn't been mentioned at all in my conversations here. One of the things I wanted to ask is I don't see a organizational chart like Mayor Pro Tim had mentioned. Is the animal services manager the um the person who oversees the whole operation of animal services or is there in the hierarchy is there somebody above because I'm not really sure when I see officers when I see management animal service manager I'm not sure is that the person who operates the staff oversees the staff

it's the manager and underneath them is the supervisor. So there is there a supervisor above the manager? No, the manager is the top spot. So the would be the top spot in animal services. So the pit So the highest position we have in terms of directing or leading animal services is the one that's vacant. Correct. Okay. Okay. But your department oversees animal control. Who who s who supervises it? Who oversees? Currently it's the captain that oversees animal services. I think that's what you were asking. I mean who oversees?

Yeah. But I'm talking about the day-to-day operations. Like so like if you know if you're if you have a department that's being run whether it's park and wreck whe whatever that department might be um obviously if there's a vacancy at the management level then that's a huge void I would imagine in terms of the day-to-day operations right yeah and especially if the shelter's at capacity every day every vacant spot isn't helping the situation get better so yes there is no animal service manager but there's also three other vacancies as well that are not helping yeah I would just kind What I wanted to understand better was the organization, how it how it works from top down to to support staff. Yeah. And if it's not in the packet, we can put something together and get it to you um fairly quickly.

How long has the manager's position been vacant? It's been about three years. Okay. We have to make this a priority. If you if if we want accountability and transparency and proper supervision, I I I I'm challenging staff to come back with the plan on how we recruit this position. Yes. And for a little background on that position, we actually have recruited for it about three different times uh in this two two years. In this past three years, yes, three years. Yes. So we have not had a uh an applicant that would uh chief had decided to is it a part of our MQs or minimum qualifications?

We updated that recently shortly after that when we thought we saw that there was possibility maybe we could uh expand our pool by making some changes to the uh minimum qualifications. Uh however, even with that, we did not find a a good applicant that she felt. I I think personally, you know, I think some of the complaints are absolutely valid. You know, it doesn't make any sense to me to have the top position in the division, you know, vacant for three years. I mean, I don't that's why I was asking the question.

I I just don't think that's appropriate and I think we need to turn that around. The other um again some of the advocates attack us when you look at fiscal year 2324 we spent from the general fund 1.7. So here we are literally you know in three years we're going to spend 2.8. So we have made a tremendous investment from my perspective. Am I wrong? I mean it's I mean we got went from 1.7 to 2.8$1.1 8 $1.1 million in a twoyear a threeyear period of time. Uh I think I'm a little unclear on your question.

So why are we getting all these complaints about services? I mean I clearly from my perspective the city has you know invested heavily you know from going from 1.7 to you know $2.8 million. And yet there seems to be all this discontent. Is it a situation that we just can never do enough?

In my opinion, hearing the speaker's talk because uh very much like council member Roachcha said, they are their list of complaints are are very different. Um we have had conversations uh as long as I have been the chief and then acting chief before that. I think the center is outdated. It's too small. there's not enough resources there to service the city. So, but that's not that's not the reason for the difference, is it?

Give me a second. Um, yes, and I see the increase in the money, but to deliver the the level of service that would make everybody happy might not be attainable on any kind of budget. Um, because there are constraints, there are limitations to not only space, personnel, and the services you can provide. Um,

Miss Merchant, City of Antioch has to we pay our taxpayers pay a fee to the the county even though we have an animal services. Well, that's where it gets a little bit muddy because we have asked the county, I can tell you probably at least 10 years and I'm sure the mayor remembers even from when you know he was an actual city employee, give us a breakdown because some of our money must be going to that and they they don't other agencies they actually get a direct bill for their portion per capita for animal services and we've always been told that no antiox money doesn't go there but theoretically, you know, all the contrast county gets all this property tax money and they allocate it somehow. So, it would make it would seem that a portion of our tax dollars must be going towards that. However, the county insists that they can't provide us figures or or you know, for as long as they've been here, they can't provide us anything or insists that no, we don't pay anything different or if we can, we really can't pull out what portion of your tax dollars additional might go to this. So,

and and just to clarify, we have inquired as well and received the same answer. Well, and that's the reason why I brought the question up earlier is because and I think that may have spurred some debate over what we're trying to do with the county because to me from where I'm sitting, this conversation we're having right now, if my property tax, if I as a citizen have funds going to the county for animal services, yet I live in Antioch, are we getting any back thing back from the county to support what we're providing here in Antioch or not? Or are we on our own? Plus, our taxpayer dollars are going out. That's

Scott, I have a question for you. Legal, if if your office sent a request for information, just like any citizen can do, they have to respond within certain periods of days and times. I'm assuming we have never looked at what our legal uh opportunities may be. So, I think we need to take a look at them. I think we owe it. I think it's it is common information. I think that we should have access to that information. It's public.

We could do a public records request and they would have to let us know within 10 days whether they have something responsive or not and whether they're um going to be willing to share it or not or you know redack the heck out of it or not. I mean they would have to let us know what they have and what they're willing to share and what they're not. Why is this a subjective? What I understand it's public information. It's our information.

Yeah, it it just depends on what we ask for what also is contained within the information that we asked for. So, it's not so there are exemptions to the public records requests. Um, and they just sort of it's not as clean as it sounds. So even when somebody requests something from us, well that's for one thing that's obviously public but it contains things that we have to redact because of personnel reasons or or other reasons that are sort of imshed within the documents. Um so depending on what we ask for here um you know money flows and things like that we we could get it. And

so so Mr. Mayor I I would suggest that we direct staff to do that frankly and we don't get the information then I think we need to look at other legal things which may mean sue the county for that information. I think it's ridiculous public agent to public agency, we don't have that information and because having that information, you know, enables us, as Council Member Roaches says, to say, "Well, wait a minute. You're getting 12 whatever it is, $12.52 per dwelling unit times however many homes we have. That's a significant number. And you know, we're not getting any services. So, we would like you to do a spayneuter say or we'd like to expand the animal shelter or whatever it is. But I think, you know, 10 years, I mean, this is ridiculous. And so, I think enough is enough. We've been patient. Let's try this. But if if we do not receive the information, then frankly, I know it's a policy question, bring it back to the council because I'd like to literally go stronger. Yes, I will make sure that we I work with city attorney's office and and request that.

All right. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Any other questions on this part of the budget? All right. Okay. Next up are the street light and landscape maintenance district funds starting on the next page. So, we can go through page by page if there's any questions and we do have um director bunting here for any questions that aren't addressed um directly in the budget pages. So, first is the lone tree maintenance district fund uh 251 if there's any questions on page eight or nine.

Is it page? I don't have Oh, there it is. I do have a question on nine. And this would be true for all of them really. Under the variance, it says, you know, decreased amount per 2026 cost allocation plan update. And in several places, we see it's a decrease, you know, so can you just uh refresh our memory. What what how did that work?

So with the cost allocation plan that Wilden is performing, the firm doing the user fee study, they took all the budgets um staff and um for those servicing departments, what percentage they do on the funds and came up with a cost allocation per the fund based on the fiscal year budget. And so some of the funds, as you will see in notes, all the funds going through, some of the funds increased a lot, some of them went down. So it's based on the oversight of those central service departments based truly uh you know mostly on the budgets of the departments in the current year so that they get a share um unless that person um directly oversees that budget. So it's taking for example a portion of the city manager's budget based on the total budget of this fund 251 for example. So when we see in this particular item, you know, there's a decrease for internal services 34%. How how are we supposed I I'm not sure I understand how to interpret that. Are we decreasing services?

No, just the share of those central service departments. So that would is that like insurance? Is it administrative overhead? It's the city managers. It's uh human resources. It's the city attorney's office. Okay. It's the facilities maintenance fund. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Thank you. So I guess I miss merchant when when we're looking at the general fund contribution, it it seems that generally speaking they went down this year from last year.

Yeah, there were you'll notice on the variance decrease for some there was some extra work that was approved by council last year. So in 2526 there's extra landscape enhancements that were approved. those should be completed by June 30th and thus the um contribution reduces. So there there are no extra landscape enhancements in this year's budget for 27. No. Okay. Was that was that about a million dollars last year that we spent on enhancements? Um I don't know the exact total. I don't know if director because I recall wasn't that a measure a measure W line item before

there was there Measure W did pay for um 325,000 but then there was beyond measure W um that had some extra landscape enhancements. So and those were some some specific targeted areas for the measure W. So I guess a question question I would have the council is you know we've been making some progress making our city look better landscaping wise. Are we still interested in the times that we're in of of continuing that program or or stopping it for a year? Well, let me Is there a master plan? I I mean, how much have we completed of it?

Right. And and I will say as you brought up, mayor, if you do in decide to increase enhancements, um, one, we'd have to make sure we have the, uh, schedule to do it in fiscal year 27. is going to then increase potentially depending on what zone these happen in the general fund contribution further increasing the deficit. True. Yeah, I understand. As to the Clarence question whether or not there was a master plan there there is a plan and we're working through it. If you'd like to see we can get something to you as to where we're going and how we're enhancing the city. I I would just roughly how much have we completed percentage-wise?

I I that would I'm not sure how to answer that question. The reason why I'm raising is the mayor brought up in prior discussion, I think he's right, the entrances into our community, whether it be Buchanan Road or Summersville or Lone Tree A Street, you know, the entrances look horrible and they need to be improved. So that that's so that's why I'm asking are we going to delay some of that because I think it is critical for us to change our image and perception of the community. Well, in the in the past, council has authorized specific landscaping enhancements. Uh, Hillrest and 18th Street was one that I can think of. Something like that could be added for those corridors. Um, currently the enhancements that we're doing are in areas. Currently, it's out in the Peru 49er area where we're doing some work out in that area. Um, so yes, the answer would be we could definitely do work in these areas if if that's where the council wanted us to focus.

Well, Mr. Mayor, this is really your issue. I I thought you were right. Uh I don't know if you want to address it or not. I I guess what what I would like to see is um a list of what we've done this year and still have to do under the current and we still have a couple months left in the year to finish up this fiscal year. And then what would be the plan or what would have been the plan to continue on that and how that would include say our entrances in to the city. Yes, we can get you that information. Okay, that'd be good. And then and then what it would cost to maybe it's half a million, maybe it's 250 to do the entrances. I don't know, but maybe it's not a full million dollars. So I they're all different. So I'm sure the cost would be different also. Okay. That

I think and I think imagery would be nice if you could provide what's projects have been worked on and maybe a snapshot of what that looks like. Yeah. Picture of it. Yeah. And I I know and I know the work that when it's been done it it looks great, right? I mean 18th Street looks fantastic and that was done a while ago. So yeah, there's been a lot of improvements that have really, you know, looks looks a lot better. Thank you. So I I'm cur I mean the city of Martinez under Highway 4, the underpass, you know, has the mo M mo Mosaic. I I can't believe the city of Martinez paid for that. Can we find out how they financed it? I suspect it would be probably state of California. There must be some grant or program.

Yeah, we can look into that. I have no idea. look at it because it really did it really does enhance you know the entrance as well as exit. I mean when you depart the city you're looking at it when you come in you're looking at it it's very positive. So anyway okay right thank you. So that I think we're done with page one the the loan tree.

Okay. Um so the loan tree also continue on page 10. So on page 11 is the downtown maintenance district. There's any questions on that? Yeah, I just I just think it would be good to note that there is no u money being paid in through um locally paid for by the downtown residents or the people in that area. It's all general fund funded for any maintenance that happens downtown. So um to the extent it looks the way it does, this is our contribution. I think again I think an investment downtown to enhance the landscaping would be nice as well. Whether it's just fixing irrigation in the planter boxes or replacing trees that have been cut down and not replaced. Um, I think things like that would be good. I don't know if this is considered part of landscaping, but I know our trash can situation downtown can look pretty bad sometimes, you know, with the old concrete, no lids on them, and it'd be nice to have a consistent look of trash cans downtown as well for folks to um, and I know that I've heard it gets into because I've asked before, you have to have all the different types of recycling. I think it's pretty expensive to provide the each trash can that provides every type of option for how to dispose of of waste. But um but I'd like to look into what that would cost for us to to start um replacing the trash cans downstairs with new ones.

Okay. Um next is Almond Ridge Maintenance District. if there's any questions on this. Okay, next is Hillrest Maintenance District. Again, I guess I would just note that the transfers in from the general fund on this one went down $85,000 or is going down $85,000. U but then also the overall cost of of maintenance is going from 1.6 to 1.2. Yeah, there was additional landscape enhancements in zone one. There was um additional enhancements and then also in zone 4 if you see on pages 14 and 15.

Okay. So, that was included in the one in the million dollars or whatever that extra extra money was. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it um back to the back to the comment by Council Member Roachcha, it would be nice to maybe see a picture of a location and picture of kind of what we what's been done um over the past year so we can see some of these improvements or prior if there's been a couple years of this being done. Okay, next would be the park 1A maintenance district. And this is the district that has our RV. Um, page 16, page 16.

So, we're So, we're showing the revised revenue at 51,000 this year, but then we're saying it's going to go back up to 72,000 next year for the for the um rentals. Yes. Is there a reason why it it went down so much and then we expect it to pop back up again? I'm going to say, but I'll have Director Bunting confirm that maybe we had some vacancies in the um the lot. Um yeah, exactly. There has been some there's been vacancies. We hope that those will be filled and that's what the projection is.

And then I I noticed that the yesterday when we went over the the rate increases there there are some significant increases in those in those rates as well. So, I suspect we might lose a few people, but hopefully um make up for it. And uh and I know that security has been an issue in the past. Is that Have we not had issues recently with security out there? Uh there hasn't been any issues recently out there. We've done a good job of uh securing the site. Okay. Because I know it's I know it's a screaming deal out there, you know, for people to have that over on Gentry Town. So, Yes, sir. How many spaces are over there? Just roughly. I still didn't get that answer. I'm sorry, Mr. Fred. Okay.

Okay. Next is citywide 2A maintenance district fund. This uh district did have some additional landscape enhancements as well. And then there is the Street Light and Landscape Maint Maintenance District Administration Fund. What about uh what about zone? Did you miss zone three and zone four? Yeah, I have zone three and zone four. I don't have any questions, but

are you talking on page 1819? Yeah, 1819. I'm sorry. Since I had said maintenance district and then no one said anything, I assume we were flipping on the next one. So, I apologize for No, that's okay.

Going past that. I guess the other the other question is in these different these like zone three and zone four. Um for example, zone 3 has no transfer in of of general fund. Um zone 4 has it says 60,000 next year. So again, we're just bring and then the fund balance looks like it goes it it drops down a little bit. So it's just a matter of um trying to put as as little general fund money in as possible. Is that kind of the the plan when we're doing that? Right. We try to keep it so that there is some money in there. You can have a maximum of six months of operating expenditures in there, but we um you know over the last couple years have been trying to keep that a little bit less just um for a burden on the general fund. Um but of course you have to have some cushion in there for because we don't get the property taxes the first installment till December. So that's why you're allowed to maintain some balance in there. Um but yes, we're you know always trying to be conscious of the general fund. And then just to point out um to your comment like about downtown this zone five there's only 1500 assessed for that whole area. So it goes

just to point out about how low the assessment that's basically nothing and that goes back to um Mayor Prompus's comment about the um looking into maybe going back out for another Prop 218 on landscaping and lighting. Yes. And we do have a consultant on board for that. So that will um be coming to council at some point. Okay. and and PDS program. Um that one we're still working with the city attorney's office on that. But yes, that is we're definitely um you know working on that. Okay.

So if there's no further questions on that, then we have the streetlight landscape maintenance district administration fund which is on page 23. And then the final landscape uh district fund is the east loan tree on page 24. Okay, seeing no questions, we'll move on to the enterprise funds. So, first we have the water fund on page 26. You'll notice on the fund balance I'm just adding back the pension and oped liability because it uh the whole amount shows as a reduction um of the reserves um even though theoretically we pay it annually. So I'm adding that back just to show what the true available ending balance is since it's an annual amortization of the PERS based on our our payroll funding. So, Miss Merchant, so when I'm looking at the bottom, add back the pens and oped

liability the 16,200. So, that's the that's total 61 million, right? No, no, it's so the fiscal year 25 balance was 16.2 million and then because it's not updated until I won't have the new balance for the water fund until after we start working on the audit, I'm keeping it at 16.2 million each year. So that's the total balance each year. So at June 30th, 2026, the balance might be 17 million, but the known balance is 60. It's not a cumulative. It's not you don't add all those together. It's one balance. I'm just carrying forward the same balance each year.

Okay. So this is the liability. Are these four, you know, funds paid out of um out of the water? Are these four positions paid out of the water fund? Correct. And so it's specific to this particular it's the proportionate share based on staffing in the water fund of the total liability because Kalpers gives us a grand total of liability. So we uh split that for accounting and financial reporting purposes based on the staffing in the you know general fund and the general fund uh special revenue fund for example and then enterprise fund. So what what are some of the other ones? I mean this is the water fund, sewer fund.

The sewer fund you'll see when we get to the sewer fund and you'll see the marina and the marine. So those are the three primarily. Yes. So we know what the total cumulative is and it's separated by particular employees in particular funds.

Correct. It's by the percentage of the payroll um of those funds. And for accounting purposes, which this might be getting too a little bit high level, the general fund does not recognize a a liability directly, it's accounted for what we call a general long-term debt account group. For general fund and special revenue, only enterprise funds recognize the liability directly. Then at year end for final reporting, we have to do what's called a conversion entry to show on the governmentwide statements how much governmental funds in total the pension and oped liability is. It's not segregated by fund. And so I I'm curious um when we move when we we determine what the total is yes of our liability and when we make payments do we also do it proportionately?

Well the payments come directly from um when the employees it's a percentage of payroll. So we we know for example say the rates 38%. So each employee that's in the enterprise fund, we have to pay 38% of um pension that goes to Kalpers after each payroll. Okay. So the answer is yes. I mean you do you do segregate it out. Yeah. Okay. All right. And then also are the revenues for the next couple of years are you um figuring in the rate increases that have been approved? Yes. Okay. They're here in this this document. Yes.

Okay. Um, so on page 28 is the water supervision division and I want to just point out for the internal services it looks really like it's increasing you know $5 million but with the new plan the prior plan um segregated the um internal services between each division and uh with the new plan it just puts it in the main um administration division in in the water fund. So did the others go down in proportion? Yes. And you you'll see notes um for example on the next page the internal services in the water production it's zero versus it was 1 million before.

Can you repeat that again? What what happened? What was the change? So in the prior cost allocation study the internal services was split between each division within the water fund. Um and in the new study it just did it for the water fund in total and put the entire um internal services into the water supervision division to encapsulate the entire charge for the water fund versus segregating it between the division. So I do have a question under source of funds the the charges for services for fiscal year 26 it's roughly 47 million and in 27 it's 53 million. is the increase primarily because of new rates.

There's new It's new rates plus estimated new um service connections because our rates aren't going up 14%. Yeah. So, I'm just How what's the assumption for for new connections? Um I do roughly I I do not know that. I mean, $7 million is, you know, it's about a 15 18% increase. It seems like a big increase to me. Yeah. And like I said, I know that part of it is the actual um I I don't know from the study what it had estimated for the new connections. I think it might have been around 200 units uh per year, I believe. Okay.

Um is there any questions on the water production or water distribution um budgets on page 29? Not for me. Okay. Then on page 30, that is the um water capital improvement plan. These budgets mirror what was previously presented with the draft um capital improvement budget that was um presented to council prior. So I don't know if you have any questions on these.

Okay. Then next on page 32 is the water system improvement fund. Okay, the next is the sewer fund on page 33. Again, here you can see where we're adding back the pension and the OPED liability and then the 2627 charges for services does assume that the rate increases are approved. Of course, that will be coming back. We have the Prop 218 notice. So if the the 218 notice fails and the rates are not adopted, we'll of course have to adjust these um revenue numbers. You can see the fund balance number ending balance looks pretty low. You see the 1.6 and the 268. However, once you add back the pension and oped liabilities, you know, we actually have 8.3 million in um fund balance, which does meet the targeted reserves we need per the rate study um that was presented to city council prior.

So, the targeted reserves include the uh pension op liability numbers included in it, right? So, that's all part of the bottom line number. Yeah.

So, I do have a question on page 33, the fund. So when I looked at investment income, it went from 300,000 to 150,000. But in the various, you know, funds that came before the investment is pretty much the same. So it's and though this isn't big, it was it was different. I mean, it's like, well, when you go back to, you know, some of these these other funds for the investment income, I mean, they're just a couple percentage difference. This is a 50% change.

Yeah. And I I do say I um it will drop a little bit because if you notice the fund balance is dropping. I believe what happened is when um this budget was initially put together, it was before we counted for the rate increase balance. Um so I we will definitely revisit that and bump that up. So yeah, it just it wasn't, you know, consistent. And then we get to this one and I know it's not a lot, but it was radically different. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I I do know it's just because when we initially put the budget together, we didn't have the rate increase number. So, yeah, we'll definitely um you know, thank you for catching up. We'll definitely increase that.

Okay. On the next page is the uh capital projects for the sewer. If there's any questions on that, again, these were the projects as presented in the draft CIP. I guess the only question is the the sewer master plan update is $700,000. That's what that cost to do an update for the sewer master plan. And then the other question is we're not showing really any CIP projects for the next couple years. Uh which seems like we probably have something to do more than a couple hundred,000.

Um so yes, the the sewer master plan is running about 600 a little over $600,000 for the work associated with that. Um as for the sewer work systems in actually pretty good shape. What you're going to be seeing is lining uh and and some rehab and some manholes. Uh there is some possible uh up upsizing that work would be done within the the sewer improvement fund, not out of the sewer fund. So you see about $3 million over the next four years or so coming out of the sewer improvement fund. Uh that would be capital work. Uh then there's also some minor projects within the sewer fund which would be your lining projects and other just kind of maintenance projects. Okay.

And if I just further um expand on director bunting on page 35 is the sewer system improvement fund. So, you can see a little bit uh more projects in that fund related to sewer, which um should address some of your questions on that, too. Yeah, it just seems like with 30,000 plus laterals and, you know, things that we have to to do, it it just seems like that's not a lot of money, but if the system's in good shape, that's great. The crews have done a great job. We have a lot of ventry clay pipe that holds up very well. Um so, yeah, we'll keep on it, but there's not expected to be a whole lot of maintenance necessary. All right. Okay. Um, and then is there any questions on the sewer system improvement fund on page 35?

Okay. The final enterprise fund is the marina enterprise fund on page 36. Again, we're showing the pension liability um for the marina fund. Um, adding back. So, you can see even with the showing the transfer in from the general fund subsidy of 700,000, it is, you know, leaving a pretty low um balance in there. I I guess I was wondering why the charges for services are going from 611 down to 564 about a $50,000 decrease for the for showing for the next couple years. Why are we showing a decrease from this year in the in the charges which I which I suspect is the the birthers what they pay for their their rentals. Um I I don't know if uh Director Bunting knows. I don't I don't know if maybe we had some increased rent come in or something.

Yeah, I we can check into that a little bit. I'm not quite sure what's happened. There's been some fluctuations with birthers out there, so it could have had something to do with looking forward, but we can take a look and come back to why the fluctuation is there.

All right. And then regarding revenue as well, we we previously had a pay station there for people when they came in. Uh which is up which what I understood was part of the grant to build that marina parking lot and boat launch, the one down at the marina. Part of the agreement was that we were supposed to have some sort of a way of recovering some of that cost. And I've noticed that that no longer exists. So I'm wondering what happened what happened with all of that. Uh it was council council requested that we stop uh requesting any payment at that time. It was during CO I believe. Um but it is something that if council wanted to reinforce we'd be happy to get that back in in

I mean I'm not sure how much money it generates but I just want to make sure we that we're in compliance with the grant requirements that you know now going on probably 15 20 years ago. Yeah. If it would be something that that you that you would like to see we would gladly get that back in operation. I I guess I just like to know whether or not it's required or not. Okay. And then because I think we were charging five bucks a day or $100 a year. It wasn't it wasn't a ton of money and I think the operation of it checking cars was a lot more work than the money we generated. But I would just like to know whether we're we're in or out of compliance with that grant. Not a problem. This is like bicycle registration.

Right. Right. Revenue wise it is. Yes. So, and then we're still we're still running the $700,000 um deficit in this in this fund, correct? Yes. Okay. Are there any loans that get paid off anytime soon?

Um I believe 2039 is the the date on the loans, but each loan has like an A and a B portion. So, there might be um I'd have to report back on that. Some of them that drop off. the um debt service is approximately uh 200 I think 50,000 a year for the loans and I know the final payoff is like August of 2039 but again each one has an A and a B stream and so some of them like the A has already been paid off but we're still paying on the B stream for example could you could you report back on what what the balance is on those and then and then what the interest rate is we're paying yes

because if we're not paying if it's if it's like something we could pay off in one chunk and get rid of a higher interest rate. I think it was from the state that we got those loans from. Yes. And um it's now falls under the Department of Parks and Recreation at the state. Um it was like the Department of Boating and Waterways which had folded under this particular program folded under the Department of Parks and Recreation. And then we are we also pursuing grant funding or funding for the dredging and in that project because I understand that we're starting to get starting to get hard to get in and out of there for bigger boats out and out of the marina.

Yes, it is. We do have a additional or an opening project that'll do the surveying out there to get preparation for we do need to to do the dredging out there. We are looking for funding sources. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. If there's no other questions on the enterprise funds, we'll circle back with recreation as soon as director um Wright is here. Um hopefully he should be here within the next uh 20 minutes so we can then move on to the general fund um portion the continuation from last night. Yes. Is this are we going back to what was the May 5th then the May 12th document?

Right. So the May 12th document is act uh the May 5th is what got pushed to May 12th. But I mean I I marked up May 5th. There's no changes. It's the same. No, correct. I just all I did was change the dates on my report. I just fine. Yeah. Sure.

Um so this is based on the feedback that we had received incorporating um you know we went through a checklist of what to include and not to include. So this is the revised budget. um as of there. As you can see on um page two, what got included for in the draft budget was staffing to unfreeze an administrative analyst in public works. Continue to freeze the se senior civil engineer. Um continue to freeze the vacant community- engagement coordinator. we have convert and fund a public works inspector versus an assistant engineer but then also reducing um contracts for services so that the net impact was um minimal. Um what I will just point out on that is after staff did um an evaluation of the staffing structure with engineering having moved under um community development uh they would not want to convert it to a public works inspector but keep it as an assistant engineer. Um so just want to make clarification on that. That would be an assistant engineer versus a public works inspector because you know that is engineering going under there. And then we have adding the policy director which is required under the um Allen settlement. And then as discussed um council did direct to add the 12 additional police officers. They would be trainees in fiscal year 27. So that would be 631,464. I did notate in my report that um I had previously provided that that cost would be 559,464 when I was pulling the numbers in to update the budget. I did realize that I had left out the medical benefits which would be $1,000 per month and that's assuming single party. It could be more if it's family, but generally a majority of the uh trainees that come in um do just have single party benefits. So that number is 631,464.

Then the draft budget, the projected for fiscal year 28, although not adopted, um assumes that those would start as full-time officers um July 1 because they would be in the academy from January through July um in fiscal year 27, then start as full-time officers in fiscal year 28. Um also then uh reducing the development engineering um contracts which was stated that would reduce the um inspector which we now need it to be an engineer. Um council also agreed to eliminate the puit CIP set aside next year cancelling the restoration of public fountain. So it's showing as a transfer into the general fund cancelling the EOC improvements as a transfer in but as mentioned at the last meeting uh that is funded can be funded by PEG. So it's not that the project's going away. just have a different funding source. Um, and then for next year, reducing the solid waste garbage franchise allocation by $100,000 utilizing the budget stabilization funds. And I do notate that uh council wanted to wait to discuss the vehicle replacement set aside, but is still in the draft numbers. It's $1.7 million. Um, so that if that does end up getting pulled out, that's an additional, you know, almost 1.8 million in deficit um that we have to address. Do

you have a question? No, I was a comment. Go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just gonna um one of the things I I really appreciate was the um attachment D I was referencing earlier where um it lays out each of the positions like you've done here. Um but I think one of the things that we'd like to see or I'd like to see is the impact. Um, as we know, as we notated in attachment D, each of the positions that were being discussed related to either of hiring freeze or recommended um to fill a position had impact to each of the departments. So, if we could do a similar fashion.

Yes. So, actually that document in front of you does have that. So, it does have the impact consequences. Under consequences, that's where the impact is. Okay. Yes. Um because for me just just individually speaking um my request back on April 15th was really to look at all of the vacance that we have for non um non public safety positions. So in regard to what I'm talking about would be uh so non police department vacancies. So when we're talking about the trainees, the officers that we the staffing to 117 ultimately we want to get to that's a priority in my opinion.

I think when we look at public safety, we're looking at the animal services manager. I think that's a priority. Again, that falls to me under public safety. So, what I would really like to do is to really um study the um the general fund vacancies that are uh that are not under the umbrella of public safety. And and so when I look at this, I I'd really like to learn more by looking at the consequences if they're not filled to make some educated decisions on where we're at.

Yes. And I would like to if we can get through this presentation and then we can go through the supplemental um report that the acting city manager provided. Um and we did in fact though include the public safety because we just wanted to be very transparent on all the vacancies and then if there are you know obviously all all of us as staff will tell you that every position is vital. So I think you need to look at everything even public safety because for example you know maybe one of the csos versus officer for example. But I think just to be transparent on all all the vacancies we have for discussion um you know that would be um great to go through that list as soon as I can get to the staff report presentation.

Okay. Do you want to go ahead and complete the staff report and then we'll Yeah. So then um there was proposals from April 21st that were requested to bring back more information. So I just kind of wanted to give you an update on that that we did talk about freezing the animal services manager position. Um staff is researching collaboration with the counties we've mentioned before. Um but in the interim we did build in some vacancy savings because even if we do go out say we start a recruitment tomorrow there still is a time for interviewing um you know posting the job and interviewing. So there realistically will be vacancy savings in the new year no matter what.

Can can we stop for a second? You know it it seems a lot of the rumors and speculation is happening in the community. you know, where are I the council doesn't know where we're at with negotiations with the animal animal services in the county. So, it's it's we're sitting here or being attacked and we have really no knowledge what really is happening. So I don't know if that constitutes negotiation and is a closed session item but it's difficult to hear all the speculation when we ourselves have not been apprised what's happening

and um I am not familiar with what's been happening but I will look into see uh and get a little more background. So part of my question is is anything happening if nothing is happening? I I can tell you that there have been discussions with the county and they were gathering data from us um to you know investigate on their end. Um but in terms of any other steps in the process um you know I obviously nothing has been negotiated because that would come to council but I know that we've provided data to the county and there um you know they've been fact gathering and so um but beyond that I'm not sure what else we could say. So

are we is this going to continue soon? Is it off by six months, a year? I I I we the time frame that I'm not exactly sure, but I I know that when we um you know, we're trying to get something resolved to either bring to council so that it wouldn't be another year, you know. So So from from for this the preparation of this budget, I guess we are assuming status quo.

Yes. Yeah, and I believe I could be mistaken, but I was a part of that conversation at the dis and it had to do with what we discussed earlier, the the amount of taxpayer dollars that goes to the county and can we have a discussion with the county to see what level of services or money we can receive back from the county. And I believe Miss Scott stated that well we can't really talk about it here because we're having some discussions some negotiations about that and that I think from that comment from that discussion took off to me and we must be doing something grand. Yeah. I mean the speculation is enormous and we're being attacked. Yeah.

And yet as a council we have no idea what's going on. So I just want my only comments. I just think that that's where it jumped off from was that the fact that there was a conversation about the county funds that they receive, what sort of support or funds could we get in return to help us what run our local animal services and then somehow that was interpreted as we must be selling it, closing it or something like that. And so that wasn't the intent of the question that I asked, but it seems like that

anyway, you know, I I would like a briefing. I don't know how how we can brief session or not, but somehow we need to have a briefing to ourselves in the community because, you know, every single time we meet, you know, we have vocal comments that are just getting, in my opinion, crazier and crazier. Uh, and I hope they're not true, but I have no idea. Yeah, I think that and then the discussion about hiring freeze, I think just compounds that. So, I think, you know, as we're talking tonight, one of the positions we're talking about, animal services manager, and I think that's a really important position we talked about earlier, but I would like to see filled.

Yeah. No, I do too. I just I just, you know, it's now taking 45 minutes or longer for for some of the advocates to address us. And we're just sitting here not saying a word because we don't really know what is happening. I'm going to look into it a little bit more and get a summary for you.

Okay. The next was freezing two code enforcement officers. Um council had asked that this come back with options such as potentially adding an additional attorney in lie of the positions for blight enforcement efforts, but we wanted to have time to more um research um is still in the draft budget and of course it is on this list that we'll be going through um of the vacancies so we can discuss it more at that time. Another option we presented was not to fund HomeKey Plus. Council asked that this come back for discussion with along with the status of the grant. So, we'll still need to bring that back. Um, on on that point, there's the other legal question with the foreclosure of the property. How does it impact, you know, this whole project,

right? And I know that the city attorney's office is looking into that. So, definitely um something will be come back on that. Um, another proposal was not to fund the AQCRT, the Angel Kinto community response team after ARPA funding expired because the half a year of funding is included in fiscal year 27. And um the mayor had asked of you know what would be the cost of reduced service model. What that look like? I was told by um the public safety and community resources director that that cost actually does include reduced service model of eight hours per day. Um but the council also did ask what the citizens will have in access to in its place if this contract ends. So that information will be brought back. Um

so the four that contract expires in December 31st. Is that Yes. Yeah. Or the funding the funding expire. I believe the contract actually expires then too because it was tied to the ARPA. So so the the funding for the 480 my understanding was that the 960 a year is for 12 hours a day. I was well I was told um by uh Monzerat coverall and I don't see that she's here that that 480 assumed the eight hour model per day. So but we'll definitely um once we come um she said it reduced it. Um definitely that'll come back with the discussion when we get more information on this. Okay. Thank you.

Um the other option was to cancel the citywide signage CIP. the council wanted to wait for the CIP presentation since there were no objections raised to the project and it's my understanding that I think it's out now out to bid the money will not be returned to the general fund.

Can you just hold uh with I just want to make sure that the community park I know it's the worshaw sports complex but the signage I hope that's included in this because it's been years. Thank you. Um the other option was uh presented was to cancel the public art and return money to the general fund. Council wanted more information on the project as they believed had to do with a public art item that was missing a hand. Um public works said that this entire structure was removed due to vandalism. So um council direction requested on this item if you want to still keep it set aside for public art if we can return that piece of money to the general fund. Do we have a cost estimate on what it would take to restore that p that particular piece of artwork? I do not know. No,

I don't know. Okay. Can we get that so we can I think that that in my mind was the specific piece of artwork that we were we were talking about um having reestablished out there. Yes. That's why Hillrest. Uh no, it's on Lone Tree. On Lone Tree. Okay. Below golf course. So yeah, the Hey Daddy look here. Um there it was vandalized. There was a missing hand and some other stuff that was replaced. Um but it has been vandalized since then and been removed. I'll check on the cost for replacing it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And then there was just a recap of um potential monetary savings that council agreed on was look at renegotiating the contract terms with the golf course. So staff will be working on that

stuff. On this one I'm in this part of the discussion. We have repeatedly made requests for financials. Have we received them? Yes, I actually did just receive those about a week and a half ago. And do they go back several years? We requested three years of information. And so we did receive that. Okay. Okay. So now, yeah, we have not had a chance to That's fine. I just want to make sure Yes. that we're receiving the information. Yes. I'm assuming that staff will, you know, since this is a 501c3, um they have to file reports with the state of California, Secretary of State. I I' I'd like to make sure the staff also access that information. Yes. And I that may be in what they g I they gave me literally like this huge file.

Okay. I just Yeah. I just want to make sure what what is being filed and the expenditures and that's fine. Yes. And then I think the other thing I I would just like to add is that this this talks about renegotiating the terms of the contract with the golf course. It doesn't doesn't refer to selling the golf course. So I think that was something that came out in an initial staff report as an idea. Yes. But council did not say to look right. So, I just want to reiterate that that's not what we're looking into right now because that created some concern for Oh, folks um involved the golf course.

Okay. The other was not to run any special events unless money can be raised to fund the entire cost. Council approved Fourth of July, Junth, and National Night Out to continue to be funded. Again, stop. Alan Payeyton reached out u what do they call delights? Holiday delights. How much how much money do we spend? I do not know. Could you just please let us know? Okay.

The other was cancelling the agreements for water um paid at um Antioch school sites. Um so we will um

question just going back to um on the again this is before my arrival our arrival maybe somebody knows the answer to this for the Junth um the city has is paying or covering the cost of this but I believe at one time there were community members that raised money to do a Junth celebration and for whatever reason that fell off the table and the city is now having to pay for that event and I believe the community members who were offering that service to the city of Antioch have gone elsewhere. Um I don't my question is I guess um because I wasn't here when that happened. Is that something that we could have a discussion about or is that something we want to continue to pay for because I see that it's a cost. Let me let me try to be as diplomatic as I can possible.

Please help me because I'm trying to understand there are divisions in the community of who is supposed to sponsor and run the event. Okay. And so I believe the prior city council I think had had enough and said no, we will sponsor it. So you're right. So which means we're incurring a cost that we didn't have before. Correct. Right. So some of the the individuals who sponsor have gone to Brentwood as an example or other locations. So, I think there was some community and all I'm saying is that if we're in a position today where we need to look at cost savings and community engagement, maybe that's something we need to relook at.

Well, Mr. Mayor, I think I think he's volunteering to bring all the groups together and see if see if they see if that can be learn where I I would just forewarn you that would be a difficult assignment. Well, okay. But I I you know, it's doable. I I will I will talk to folks and find out. Yeah. And I and I I've talked with folks in the past as well. And I think another part of the discussion is making sure that um the parks and recreation staff's included in that discussion absolutely city manager's office just so that there's coordination between what's happening out in the community and what would be happening internally. So

yeah, when I just when I see outside organiz like when we look at you know celebrate Antioch and different groups that raise money to do events and can that that can offset the cost that we have to incur out of general fund why wouldn't we want to promote build you know it so council member Roach I think the problem is you're being irrational and logical and and that may be the the challenge

but I I I go I just know When I was when I was principal Antioch High, we had a shoestring budget and we would rely on networking to get people to come in. The more the marrier and people would contribute and it would be less money that parents and students would have to pay for. In a similar sense, if we could somehow work on maybe reducing some of these divisions that were in place before we arrived because I'm obviously not a part of those divisions because yeah, ne all none of us were. So the three of us are here tonight were not part of that. So brought into maybe it's a new time that we can possibly open those. I'm willing to get involved in those discussions.

I I'd be happy to join you because I was involved originally with some of those. So we can we can circle back again with the core team and see what happens. So I I would caution that if you do this, you need to invite everybody so that everybody is included in the discussion. There are there's there are divisions. I have no problem doing that. when we're talking about general fund money being spent. I I I'm f I'm fine with what you're saying.

I know I'm restating what I said already, but if conflicts is what prevents us from being able to come to some type of agreement that is common sense um then we have to maybe bring some personalities and some um people together to talk it through and see what we can do. But I don't feel like the city should take the cost completely over personality conflicts. I I think maybe that would be a great question to discuss with Mr. Wright when he comes in. Sure. Okay. So, next was cancelling the agreements with the school district for um water. So, we'll be working with the city attorney's office for the next steps in the process to initiate cancelling um those agreements. Um

just a comment on that because I I I brought that one up as well. Um, if this if if the city of Antioch in the future looks to have our park and Rex department go back to utilizing any of those spaces, I have no problem with us having an an agreement like this. But the fact that we haven't done anything with those two facilities for I believe I read two years going on three. That's I think it's even longer than that. Was that I think it's even longer than that.

Longer than that. Yeah. I mean, because I remember when I was when my kids were young, they played youth sports there up at Memorial Field and it was a regular place where there were actively family recreation happening. Um, so apparently that hasn't h happened for quite a while. Um so that is the reason why I thought why would we commit to paying an annual fee for something and um absolutely at some point point in the future um you know if we did that with the school district or even any other nonprofit that owns land or whatever we would you know definitely be um entering into a joint use agreement with them. Sure.

Okay. The next was for the water park um staff can evaluate a service model that reduces the number of days. It was also brought up what if we expanded um hours, could that generate more revenue? So, this will be um brought back once um staff has a chance to do some research on this and then explore collaboration with the county or other partners for animal services. So, we'll be um you know once we get some more information reporting on that when we can. So, on the next page is the general fund um budget summary. I did change um a little bit how the deficit is shown just because um there was a lot of questions and kind of like some circling around on the number um the way it was presented before because over the years I've been asked to present this several different ways by different city managers and council. So you'll see I put deficit and I'm putting revenues minus expenditures. So you can see in 2526 it's 9.67 million being reduced by 5 million. So the net deficit after the transfer is 4.6 million. In 2627 on the current draft budget, the revenues minus expenditures, the deficit is approximately 11.5 million. We're reducing that by 5 million, offsetting that essentially with the budget stabilization fund, leaving a remaining net deficit after transfer of approximately 6.5 million. And then projected 2728. Um you know, we're not adopting this budget, but you can see the um deficit jumps up to 18.4 4 million. That is because we're assuming full staffing plus the addition of the 12 police officers. Um so that adds um uh 3 uh $3 million approximately. That should say fiscal year 28, not 27 budget totaling. Um so you know, all staffing being fully funded plus the addition of the 12 full-time officers. So that jumps up to 18.4 million. Again, we're not adopting that budget, but it's definitely something to keep in the

front view, not rear view as we um evaluate the deficit and moving forward. So, each next fiscal year, we're still estimating to definitely be above our targeted reserve level of 38.94 with 38.94%. Um 20% is our targeted unreserved fund balance level. However, um you know there's a lot of work to be done because we can't sustain this moving each year forward. I have also included projections in attachment A um showing what it looks like and again these projections do not include any colas um because we are still in negotiations with the bargaining units um and that information can be brought back with colas um if directed to do so. I did provide information with colas last year and um was kind of rebuked for doing that. So, I did not want to include colas in this these current year projections, but you can see by fiscal year 2930 um you know, we're below the 20% reserve level um and a very unsustainable balance of you know uh just about $12 million. And finally on the staff report on page um six is just the 1% sales tax measure W allocation I've put with the revised fiscal year 26 based on the revised budget um council previously um in the fiscical year 26 budget allocated 70% to the police department 15% to quality of life and 15% to youth. If council wants to keep that same split I'm giving what uh those budgets would be. However, um council can decide on something different. So, we'll need direction on that to include into the um draft budget that's brought to council for approval. And as a reminder, it's not additional money in the general fund. It's just how you're you're splitting the pie.

Did related to public safety and community resources, did council specifically ask for one and a half million under quality of life and then 960,000 for youth network services? How did it get divided up that way?

Um the when it was brought for public safety and community resources excluding youth which falls under the youth network services um it was 15% to these two categories under there and so um because code enforcement gets um other supplemental revenues like assessment fees, it was trying to pretty much split it between the two um initially. Um, so you'll see like in fiscal year 28 it splits it evenly that three mil the 15% between the two and it's pretty close in fiscal year 26. So that's kind of how it's looked at. Well then I just noticed recreation services drops down from one year to the next from 27 to 28,

right? Because the initial budget for youth network services in the adopted budget was a little bit higher than 961,000 but the revised budget for the youth network services division is only 961,000. that's the most money we can allocate towards it. So I had to we reduced that and then bumped up what was going to recreation services and then I know Monzat's not here but it says public safety and community resources except for youth under quality of life right because the youth services is under that youth what what are the what's the million and a half dollars pay for under that? So there is the violence intervention um division there is the um public safety and community resources admin'll be able to see when we get to the budget worksheets for the general funding.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Miss Merchum. Before we go off, historically, how was it divided? I thought I read somewhere started out at 6020. I believe that's what it was. It was just a a council decision on that time to split it that way. So, how long ago was that roughly? Um I believe that might have been from the beginning when the measure I would have to go back and look but um when did the measure

well initially um it first passed in 2014 I believe it was um then we did the renewal increased it to the 1% and that passed in 2019 and went into effect. So it's a some people have argued that the 60 2020 was something in concrete but it seems like since prior councils for more than 10 years have changed some of these allocation I I assume it it is discretionary.

It is discretionary. There's nothing in the past ordinance or ballot measure that it says it's for general services. It does give what those general services are meant to be. um you know in the ballot language it talked about you know quality of state life 911 response etc but there was nothing in the measure because it is a general measure that says it must be split this way so that's why it's council discretion on how um it can be split and I and I recall it was 801010 originally that was originally I know I know there's a move it's moved around and yeah my my understanding it was originally it was 801010 and then it was moved to I believe 60 2020 and I believe last year

we changed and it may have been 801010. I I just that's so so long ago I I can't remember. It's the discretion of the of the Yeah. The question really is is there anything in the ordinance or the measure that was passed and I you answered it's discretionary. This council made a decision last year 70515. Yes. And so, um, I don't know if you if council desires to keep that split same split or I'm fine with it. So,

I'm just I'm just not sure of how the money is allocated as far as the different line items and how it's being um how it's being allocated to the different areas. So, that'd be my only question. Well, the only the one question I would have is if we have grant funding that comes in for any particular um if it's if it's youth or if it's um whatever it may be, we have grant funds coming in. Um that would be the only reason why I would possibly consider the percentage ratio. Yeah. And the grants um any of the grants that the public safety and community resources has now are not in the general fund. They're in the Calvette fund um the California youth grant fund. So it's not part of this 1% measure W. accounted for in uh special revenue funds outside.

Well, I guess I guess what I'm saying is though I think the intent of having the percentage be higher in youth services and quality of life was because there were no grant funding there was no grant funding coming in in those areas. If there's grant funding coming in now, that would be something to look at in terms of how we make any adjustments if at all to reduce the general fund contribution by virtue. For example, on the gun violence, the Calvette grant, the $2 million that would theoretically take out the need for general fund contribution since it's

No, but there's a youth services network division in the general fund completely separate from those other grant fundings. So this 961,000 is what is in the general fund and regardless if you say measure W is going to it or not, it's still going to be 961,000. Correct. I understand that. So that's why we look at look at what the different different funds or funding, right? I'm just saying it's not going to reduce the general fund contribution because it's still going to be in the general fund. It's just not going to say that it was funded by measure. It's just an allocation issue. Yes. Correct. Yes. Understood.

Okay. Then we'll um bring that forward with the same and then when we go through the budget sheets, you'll be able to um see a little bit more um detail on all of these. So, um we're still waiting for um director Wright so we can start going through the um individual budget sheets. And then before we before we do that, can we look at attachment A quickly? Is that part of part of this here before we get in the budget sheets?

Yes, the projections. So, so we're looking at the 2526 budget and we're saying that we revenues 98 expenditures 107 and then we're saying in our 2627 budget we're at 97 we went down for three $400,000 and we're going up a million half dollars right in our in our in our expenditures and then it jumps up by in 2728 by um looks like $8 million. Yes.

So that $8 million is just attributed to like I guess for example the police was $3 million of it. What that seems like a lot. That seems like a lot that it's increasing from from this proposed year to the next year. Yeah. A majority of that if you'll see it's six million in staffing. It's because it's projecting that everything is fully funded plus the addition of those 12 police officers. Okay. So that's basically just personnel cost that's increasing it so significantly. Yes. Okay.

I mean because you you do see that there's you know 1 what is that 1.6 six million in services and supplies and that's just for you know utility cost increases other you know uh increases but the majority of that increase is personnel cost right because if we look at if we look at the 2526 budget at 61 million and then we project out you know a couple years bumping up to 80 million you know that's a 33% increase in personnel cost over the next three to four years which just seems outrageous when we're trying to keep our costs under control so it's primarily the 12 12 officers. Yeah, it's not $9 million or $8 million.

I bet it's the majority when they go from training to full-time officers. Yes, that it would be. Yeah, we're adding, you know, three million, you know, just over three million in 2728. That's assuming step A. In 2829, they go up to step B for example. And then, you know, just you have all the other increases. I mean the real driver are those 12 positions to get to the 117. Correct. Sure. Yeah. I was just I use when I look at officer positions I think you use 250 as a as a number.

Yeah. But when you look at then just because in general once they get beyond a step when you look at a pepper officer that's step a just out of the academy it's actually more about 200,000. But once they move up in steps and then if they get um longevity pay for is sooner pay educational it just really kind of drives. So the 250 is more someone that's getting like a 5% educational um incentive on top of their their pay.

Okay. I guess it would be it would be nice just to have a and I understand between an officer and a lieutenant or captain there's big differences cost also but it' be nice just to have like kind of a a number 300,000 250 400 half whatever just to use as a general rule of thumb to figure out what it costs to add or delete police officers. But if you're going to do that you you have to do all the other ancillary costs. You know, do they have a vehicle and what does it cost for their uniforms, their boots, the gun? the training and things of that sort. It's just not the salary and benefit. It's all the other things that we expend on our officers

space and so on and so forth. So you might want to what is the the cost and benefit portion but then really what is the other po other part of that and that is to have a fully functioning officer with the vehicle with a radio with a gun with uniform so on and so forth. And you know that's part of you know the increases in the outlying years too just it's it's not necessarily the vehicle but they increase have to increase the training budget because now you have 12 more officers on board you know and so and there's you know postmandated trainings and other things that they have to maintain. Um, this might be a good time to Oh, I see the chief's not here. Maybe one of the captains can answer a question about we're what's our what's our sworn number right now and an idea of projections um over the next I think we were we were hoping to be at 105 by the by this end of this fiscal year which I don't think we're going to even come close to achieving. Correct.

Yeah, you're correct uh mayor. So, as right now we're we're at 85 still. We have uh one currently in academy graduating in July, four others in academy graduating at the end of October and then four starting the academy at the end of this month. So if they all all graduate and are trainees that are currently in training successfully get off training, we should be about roughly 94 by the end of the year. That's also assuming everybody graduates the academy passes successfully and they also successfully pass the field training process. So what would you say your attrition rate has been historically because you don't make 100% doesn't make it through. Correct.

Yes, you're correct. It's uh it ranges but um anywhere from 40 to 50%. Attrition rate. So so for for out out from the start of the academy to uh successfully completing the field training program. Yeah. Like we just lost one out of the academy a couple days ago. Unexpected. So the 94 does that take into account your attrition rate? It does not. Okay. So maybe it might be 90 if we were to take that. That's perfect scenario 94. And that's also assuming that we don't have any retirements. Nobody leaves.

Okay. So then the reason I asked that question is because we we added in the 12 officers for this year's budget from December through next year, right? Half half the fiscal year. So that would assume we would we would be at 105 by December and then we would be bringing on 12 officers into the academy at in December. What do you what do you think the reality is? Where do you think we'll be at the end of end of this year? If you I think the reality is at the end of this year roughly hover around 9 94 low 90s. So end by end of this year calendar year or fiscal year

um calendar year. Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah. So by end of this year so you know end of December of this year um roughly you know 94 around there. Um and to get 12 more in the academy that starting in January that would be uh you know that's going to be tough to do um considering the fact that a lot of times there's only two localmies one in Alamita one in Contraosta and typically we get anywhere from four to five spots in each of thosemies. And then how about laterals? Um you're not taking into account bringing any laterals over. Are we assuming there aren't other officers that are bringing to be wanting to come over to Antioch? I mean we're heavily recruiting for laterals. um just in the past uh several months if not longer we haven't had any interest.

Okay. And so I guess the reason I'm asking this is because you know we we don't want to go into a budget with a huge salary savings built into it if we're not going to actually achieve you know we want to be realistic with our numbers I think. And so and then also Anna you were saying with there's legislation as far as um

vacancies. So there is it's a a new it's a in assembly bill 2561 and that is where we have to report out the number of vacant positions we have um and uh and we have to identify if it's more than 20% that we've had we have to uh notify all the unions the reasons why we were not able to fill those positions um so the idea is to fill all the vacancies right so if we do have all these uh positions that we know that we may not fill then it doesn't really uh it's it's not a good uh presentation for the unions because what they're trying to do is they do see that the more that you save and you have salary savings, you might use that for other things. Um so you try to they're trying to avoid that for the cities to hold a lot of money as salary savings when you know that you're not going to fill them.

So so I would like us to take that into account as we're looking at our numbers.

Yeah. And I will tell you that um there is some vacancy savings in the police department built in just based on prior conversations. You I meet I you know talk with the chief and HR you know every few weeks kind of what the status is. And so in the draft number there is four um officers build in to be vacant all year um for and that's just about 815,000. And then for the um officers that are in the academy, although that number has changed since them dropped out, but at the time when the academy, I took the difference between what would be part-time help versus having those be full-time. So there's an additional about 600,000 built in and the difference between the part-time help for those trainees in there. So there is some vacancy savings, but by you know, the update given this evening, it looks like there's probably more that could be um built in. But I think the other issue um and I can ask the acting city manager to clarify is that we still say we're funding 105. So even if you're showing the vacancy savings, I don't know if it makes a difference on that reporting. So

it does. Yes. So again, it's uh we have to report out the actual number um you know the funded and what's filled um and then have an explanation as to why we did not fill those positions. Yeah. And so you give it and then what we just Yes. So it's part I know it's something that uh it's more something that we have to deal with the unions right

okay so m mayor on on your question I understand so bitner um it's kind of I understand we need to be more realistic because obviously it impacts us financially but if we so in that regard if we say okay 12 you know um what trainees and we only get half of it We still have to find we I would assume we still have to budget for the 12. So it's it's a it's a it's a changing number.

Uh but realistically I think what happens and and this is where the trends come in. It's if you do start with 12, how many do you think are going to finish? you know, so yes, there are authorized positions, but they don't all have to be 100% step E or whatever it is financed. And that's that's kind of the trick that I think that we need to be very careful of. But I I understand what you're saying. I mean, I've always argued that we should not assume that they're 100% step E finance because Well, but to your point to your point, many of our new officers,

they're they're actually new to the profession. So they would be on the lower end of the salary range I would think, right? You sure? Um so

yeah and I and as I mentioned before I do you know build in you know A's C's whatever definitely when it's an academy person. So and um yeah and so one thing I I was mistaken when I was talking about the the cost of the officers built in. So my statement is that after evaluating the staffing, there's been vacancy savings built in total, you know, not just police department, the majority is the police department, $3 million in fiscal year 27. So um that's included in these draft numbers, but um you know, we'll have to work with the police department because obviously some it sounds like some more vacancy savings um can be um built in beyond that number. And then it was I think it was about 2.9 million. I have to find on another staff report that was built in fiscal year 28 for those officers then being full-time starting July 1, 2028.

So, Merchant, what what concerns me, you know, on the general fund projections, you know, footnote a assumes all positions fully funded and that's always been been my concern. And I think the mayor is saying we need to be realistic that yes, we authorize for 105. I mean that would be the authorization. How we finance that that between 80 what did you say 88? How many today? 85 sorry 85. How we finance the 85 and the additional you know 20 positions I think is part of the question.

Yeah. And so 2627 although it says a it has vacancy savings built in as I just mentioned but how many of the the let's say 20 positions how many are they all do they have do all 20 have full funding not in 2627 in 2627 12 of them are budgeted as part-time trainees and then there is I built in four officers being vacant the entire year and then um there's the trainee that were already in progress I, you know, took there's savings of between what's the part-time help versus the full-time. And so all those, you know, that builds into over $3 million in vacancy savings already built into 2627. 2728 is where it's

all positions are considered fully funded. And I realize there might be some vacancy savings in 2728. We don't know at this point, but if council's going to authorize these positions and say they're going to fund them, they need to know how much it's going to cost ultimately. And that that was the goal of the request in the first place is because it was we we never saw the real number. Now we have it here to see what the impact is to fully fund 117 officers.

Right. So that is in 2728. So, like I said, 2627 does have vacancy savings, which I believe, you know, I will work with um the chief captain and and uh the acting city manager to kind of get dialed down to see if there's more, you know, there more vacancy savings that can be realized in 26 27 based on the fact that some of those have um you know, dropped out. And then if they realistically say, I don't think we can get 12 in the academy in uh you know, January, it might only be six. We'll reduce that, you know, cut that $600,000 number in half. So we'll we'll we'll strategize on that. So I so to me the goal would be to make sure that we keep the 117 at reference that as a goal but make sure that we show what what how the calculation is determined on how we get to our funding number. So, say for example, if you said we were going to add the 12 officers and in January 1, right, at half at whatever that costs,

and you have a four person vacancy, that would mean up until January, you would you would budget for 105 minus four for the whole year, right? Basically, is kind of what we're saying, right? So, I just think it'd be good to clarify how the numbers are are determined. So then we can make sure that we're not having a lot of extra money built into the budget that we're never going to actually spend.

Right. And I, you know, I think part of the difficult challenge with that just ever since I've moved in finance director is, you know, we've always had vacancy savings of of some sort in whatever department is that you don't want to say less because if you get lucky and all of a sudden you're at 105, but your budget says you're only funding 100, you kind of have an uh oh moment there and you're coming back and saying we've reached that. So it's getting that balance and how we sensitively word it so that it makes sense to everybody you know. Yeah. Again I mean our goal is you know is 105 sworn officers. I mean that I mean that is our goal. Yes. You know and I do think we have to have full disclosure.

Um not so much narrative that it gets very confusing. Right. But you know uh but I think that we you the word you use is right. It's balanced. What is the balance? The other part of this and one of the reasons why I advocate for a grant writer is I read in the newspapers and other publications there are federal funds for hiring officers. I I I don't know I don't know if we ever apply for those to speak to that. We we did that's why I asked the question some time ago. We applied for a federal grant I believe but then the cost was going to be we would incur more of a cost

the the amount of the grant versus the match was very um it cost us you know I think it was like 25% was a grant 75% was the city part and and it was like spread over three years and you have to maintain and then it's officers beyond what we're funding and so it's like we're not even going to get to what we're funding so that's the because I do recall that there was I remember reading an announcement that congratulations had received. I don't if it was a cops grant or what it was called. Yes, it was a cops grant. Was a cops I do remember that correctly then. Yeah, it was a cops grant and it was I think it was five officers. It was like 2.2 or somewhere was a dollar amount. And so I asked the chief about hey tell me about whatever happened with that. And that's what he stated was that the cost

you can't use it to supplement your existing. It's to hire brand new on top of and it was like well we're not even at that on top of we don't know we're going to get that on top of. And then the match required the effort on the grant and the tracking and the reporting was it was just you know not feasible.

All right, Mr. Mayor, can I correct something real quick? I said about lateral interest. So I know I mentioned that we haven't had a whole lot of lateral officer interest. Um and that is that is true when it comes to the officer level. I think the last lateral we brought on was about two months ago as far as officer lateral applicants. We haven't had any for for quite some time. Uh but we did just finish up a recruitment for a supervisor position and we did get a lateral applicant there. We're in the process of recruiting for lieutenant positions and we're expected to receive some lateral applicants uh in that position. So thank you.

Um if there's no other questions on the staff report, Director Wright is now here if you wanted to go back to the recreation fund or if you want to continue with the general fund. What's Can we take a five minute break? Yeah, let's take a five minute break and then we can go back to um director Wright since he's raring to go and tell. All right, thank you. All right, we're going to take a fiveminute break till 5:45. The meeting is recessed at 5:41 p.m.

Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat.

Happy. Oh. All right, welcome back for from our recess. Mr. Clerk, could you please take the role?

Thank you. Recess has ended. Meeting is back in session at 5:49 p.m. Council member Torres Walker is absent. Council member Wilson is absent. Council member Roacha is here. Mayor Prompus present. Mayor Bernal here. Thank you. We have a quorum at 5:49 p.m. All right. So, if we can move uh back to the finance um yes, we're moving back to recreation. So, we're back on the study session attachment. The recreation services fund budget worksheets begin on page three. Um so,

Director Wright is here to answer all your burning questions. So I guess I guess one qu are we just going to ask any questions on the first page then? Is that is that

the first page is the overall summary and then you'll see on pages um four five and then um six are the individual division budgets within the recreation fund. So, I guess my first question just generally speaking, so it shows the general fund uh subsidy or transfer is going down by $225,000 from last year to this year or from this year to next year. Yes. Do we do we

the mainly is there is some um sighting work and um uh like some alarm upgrade and some other projects and you you'll see that in the um and some uh roof repair work. So there is uh capital expense built into 2526. You can see the 164437. So that's a you know approximate that that work hopefully is done by um June 30th. And then also it shows we have an ending fund balance kind of bounces around a little over a million dollars. That is that the money that's designated for the turf field and these different fields. Is that money?

So yes, part the turf field part unfortunately it's not you know a million dollars but it is for sports field, turf field, city park and memorial field maintenance. So there's fees that come in um when people make um donations to these uh when they pay their fees to these uh specific uh maintenance. So that we have to hold that money until we do work. So, so can you let us know how much is in each of those because I know like maybe the Yes. the money in the turf field could be used as a down payment for whatever work, you know, getting a grant or something like that. Matching funds. So, I know we're we're trying to we're trying to round up some money to redo those fields. We'll do. Question.

One question. And reading that it says sports field, turf field, city park, and memorial field maintenance. Is Memorial Field the item we were talking about with the school district? So, one of the issues we were talking about in the budget was that we have a a an agreement with the Anakified School District for two um parks that we're not using and we've been paying 150,000 annually the last two years I thought, but it's been longer than that because we're not not utilizing uh I think it's lone tree I thought it was and it was memorial filled. So when I read this line item, fun balance and it references sports field, turf field, city park or memorial field maintenance, is memorial field maintenance the field that we're talking about? I have to look into this this uh this fund because Memorial Field is not being taken care of and I believe that the agreement again I believe the school district was going to take care of it and we had access to use it. But I went out to that field and all the lights and all the copper and the field is in bad shape. I mean it's gophers is holes. I just think that I just think looking at your your last comment about the fund balance when they clarify the cost for the turf field or whatever

that memorial field maintenance should come off of there because it's not happened and that might have been you know carried forward for like years and the balance I couldn't tell you um exactly but if if we you know um director Wright and myself can look at that and if that is for indeed if it was targeted at some point for Memorial Field we can definitely shift that balance into the turf field side because that needs it you know so m I just um so we do have the ending fund balance in June with the footnote of approximately for 2526 1.1 million and we we have fund balance committed for sports field and so on and so forth why don't we just identify those actually in the budget

um we can do that I mean it would make it simpler just you know so that the council knows okay what how much the sports field cost of turf field city park and then know what our true balance if there is anything what our true ending fund balance would be. Yep. I can certainly do that. if there are any um questions on this page from so then on the next page is the um Nick Rodriguez Community Center also known as NRCC um budget if there's questions there.

I just had a question. So, the the personnel cost is going from uh 682 to 781 from this year to next year. And it says increase in part-time help. Are we are we expecting an extra $100,000 in part-time help next year?

So, it's a combination of two things. Uh going getting a threequarter time person because I really want to ramp up the programming that we do for youth on this side of town. So we have a part-timer that you know if if we had this extra funds we can go to from a th000 hours to 1500 hours that will build our capacity. Uh the other part of that is that the part-time rate has every year has gone up. So it's also room for that that 1690 to go up to 17 $18 as well. So you you're going to see that number for part-time help is going to go up with the anticipation that part-time wages are going to go up. And we're also competing against like McDonald's and fast food chains who are paying $20 and trying to retain current staff at a at a at a at a wage.

Okay. So, you're going to see that across the board, not only Nick Rodriguez, but you're going to see that at the community center. You're going to see that in sports. That that number has gone up just in anticipation. What is the minimum wage in the state of California? Uh, it's 1550. Oh, really? I believe it's 1690. Did you go up now? Yeah. Okay. I just curious what it was. Thank you. Um Okay. So, the next on the next page is the sports program division and there's also the community recreation division. I just What does PTH stand for? Part-time help.

Oh, that's part-time help. And then again, in community recreation, the personnel cost is going from 1,ion584 up to 1,725 an increase of 150,000 and it says increase in part-time health cost. So that's that's all attributed to the increase in increase in minimum wage plus is there any any additional capacity is being added in there for that one?

Not in that one. That's just anticipation um for expansion of programs. I can go back and I can work with the finance director and we can I can tighten that number up in terms of, you know, maybe shaving off 25 50,000 um to help and just I would really I really would need to go back and see what type of programs we're we're we're having. But we use part-time staff also for all the rentals. So sometimes that number fluctuates throughout the season when we have rentals on Saturdays and Sundays or we have nighttime rentals. those staff get get employed more versus when there's there's a low season. But we're anticipating once we get all our facilities back online, facility rentals are going to go up again. We're going to need part-time help to to open and clean the building because we do do all our uh cleaning and maintenance internally. Can can you explain the difference generally speaking between what parks and recreation provides um say for youth and what the public safety and community resources does? What's what's kind of the

difference?

Yeah. So, uh park and recreation is uh entry for all. So, basically it's experiential uh programming fee for service. So all of our services have a recovery model um where you have to pay for a service. In terms of public safety, most of their programming are free uh and it's for uh age group. So it's it's basically teen and above to to young adult. So about 24. So we have preschool, we have senior programs and everything in between our classes uh which is an entry level for people to experience. uh public safety is supposed to be uh doing programming for at risk youth. That's the programming is free so that you can try to modify uh experience and give opportunities to those uh disadvantaged.

So when does does um your programs cover the teen and teen and youth up to 24? Do you do you have things for that group of folks?

So we have programming for all all ages. Um our understanding with with that department is that we'll scale scale back on the teen side and let them have have a chunk of that age population so that they can go out and do that. But uh we've seen an increase in interest from the community to do more teen programming. So we have like a a teen cooking class now. Um and there's other teen events that that the community is asking us for. in terms of like sports, they they we kind of stopped at 12 and then the the demand was like, hey, we we still want more more pro sports programs. So, we kind of crept up in age up to 14. And then we have our uh junior wreck leaders uh in the summer who is uh I like to think of like a phase system. So, they phased out of our summer camp, but they're one year too young for the internship. So we give them opportunities to come and volunteer throughout the summer at our three facilities. They get some experience learning uh camp stuff with with the uh camp leaders and then the next year we kind of push them to go into the internship. So it's kind of a partnership where we have that little gap in between for that program that they can graduate into getting a paid internship.

Okay? Because the re the reason I'm asking is you know we have this we have a program for disadvantaged youth in this teenage to young adult group and then we have seems like a little bit of a gap in our own program but then you know we always hear there's nothing to do in our community. So are we missing are we missing something from from parks and recreation standpoint that could be not free but paid for in that 14 to 24 age group.

Yeah. All I need is just, you know, if that's the wishes of the council to to permit that, that would be a subsidy that we will offer to teens and I can go out there and offer programming to teens. You know, we have the capacity in terms of programming. Um, like I said, we have teens that have aged out of some of our other stuff. Uh, but we can we can rev up and and do more stuff for sure. I mean, we just had a conversation today about having uh esports group and to have um you know, different little um three-on-ree tournaments and stuff that we can do, but it a it's a capacity issue, right? And then our model of service has been fee for service. So, if the council would like and say, "Hey, we want you we want recreation to do teen stuff as well," we can populate that and we can we can start doing stuff.

That would that would be for a fee though, right? But if if the council wants to say, "Hey, we want you to allocate funds from, you know, the budget to just go and do it, subsidize it, fully subsidize it." Then I would need to go back and figure out what that looks like and bring it to you and you guys say, "Hey, go for How about as a feebased, you know, similar to what happens up till 12 or 14, just continue it on through the through all the age groups? Yeah. No, we can't. And I would say I would just say that there would still, you know, uh, director Wright would have to cost that out because it's not 100% fee coverage as we know for recreation. So

whatever it is, if it ends up being that the city's paying 30%, 60%, whatever that number is, it's going to come out of the general fund. So that you that's all all

I I guess what I was thinking and again I I don't know historically how I know I as a youth participated in the recck department and back when I was a kid you know it was JFL football there were variety of youth sports that the recreation department provided and I think it was just kind of a given when you get into uh a secondary education there were sports provided at schools and junior high and high school right Um, but having been a principal for a long time, um, it is unfortunate that like when you say basketball, not everybody, there's a lot of kids who don't make it on the basketball team. I mean, right, a varsity team carries probably 12, right? The high school has 1500 kids.

Yeah. So, a three on three type of league, I think, would be extremely interested and I think people would be willing to pay that fee. I know my kids when they were little, they used to play flag football for the recck department and that was a and I'm sure again that's youth. Yeah.

Um flag football's taken off at the high school level now. Now there's teams competing at the high school level. Flag football is really popular. So I guess I'm not pro I'm not suggesting that we do this. But I do think that we're at the time when we look at youth and you hear the comment there's nothing to do in any sometimes. Um, I think the schools can only do so much and if there are particular programs that we can maybe look into and I would think that I don't think it has to be subsidized or free. I just think that if there are some families whose children want to participate in something and maybe they just don't have the skill set to be able to compete at the high school level and make the the teams that you compete for that possibly there could be a place for kids to still um participate in an athletic sport that they enjoy. Just something to think about as you moving forward.

Merchant, I have a question. Um, I got to be involved in the community engagement grants this this past year with 50,000 funding. Is that a part of the recreation budget? Is it the city managers? Where did where is that accounted for? It is in the general fund um non-EP departmental budget. Um, in the past those grants have been um uh I believe uh recreation has kind of worked on the if I'm correct. um in terms of getting the um requests from the community and the evaluation and awarding of those grants, but it is in the general fund. It's it's just that we've had some discussion about if we're continuing this or not.

Th those were pulled out of the budget. Those were paused in the budget, right? And so because Mr. Wright actually pretty much handles the whole administration of it. I mean that that $50,000 was actually taken out. So if there is if you want to do some subsidy to expanded programs, I would suggest maybe some of the money might be theoretically coming from that source, but it is then you add it back into the budget as an expense. No, I'm not saying 50 to 50, but I I mean maybe a portion a portion of it, but that's still Oh, I understand.

So I mean again, I'm open to do whatever the council desires. I mean, if we want to do an experiment of taking 10,000 and saying, "Hey, we want to see if we can expand team programming and um one of the things that, you know, we have the youth fund, we have a scholarship for seniors as well for adults. If we had just like a teen pool of like say $10,000 and if teens can't cover it all that they can still come participate, we just draw down out of that 10,000, we can run whatever program we want." Um, that's just an idea.

Yeah. The other thing with growing up in the city of Antioch, a lot of our little league team, Babe Ruth teams are all sponsored by businesses and they basically paid whatever the the uniforms, the cost, the playing fields, umpires, coaches, and things of that sort. if you introduced the 303, you know, you know, we could the cost would not that be that great to maybe engage the community and sponsoring one or two teams and and try to raise some of the funding that way. So, I think there are activities, but for the for this discussion because I would suggest that we put $10,000 in there with regards to I don't know teen I don't know how what you want to call it, teen

recreational activities.

Sure. And and let Mr. rights and Miss Merchant discuss it and you know come back with a proposal. I think it's a great idea because one of the things having been a coach and an athlete back in the day um and having been principal uh when we talk about um when we talk about at risk youth doing uh mental health social emotional support type programs, one of the things that often gets overlooked is the value that high school secondary school athletics provides to students because they have an experience where they are partnering up with classmates who come from different socioeconomic situations. They come together and develop team chemistry. They have a coach that they get to work as kind of as a mentor if you will and then they have an end of the season kind of where it comes to an end. and all the the lessons that come along with that are are those kind of things that you can't find anywhere else in when you're young. many of my closest friends, we developed those relationships back when we were youth playing on teams together and those relationships last a long time and it doesn't really so to me I just always think that athletics recreation sometimes gets overlooked when we talk about social emotional support we talk about you know at risk youth finding connections with others sometimes that connection can be through an activity and so I would like to you know take your suggestion and see what Mr. Wright Mr. right does a wonderful job in the programs I've seen him create and who knows maybe you can come up with something that might engage some of our youth and they can we're not going to be able to get them all but maybe there's some that we can touch and have an impact on

so in the past the police department would tell us that youth crime eventually spikes basically after 3:00 to 7 o'clock I don't know if that's still true or not but you know with with you know Deer Valley literally right across the three. Um it might be a time that you try to, you know, work with the school district, work with uh Deer Valley and, you know, not everybody's premier athlete, but they want to they want to engage and build those relationships and there's so much that can be learned those activities. So I would suggest, you know, $10,000 or so

and kind of an act I say afterchool program. You know, I sure we could do as well with the Antioch High School, but you know, with the fact that Deer Valley is right there, they can go across the street and hopefully that will help um decrease youth crime in the city of Anno. Got it.

Okay. Is there any other questions on the sports or community recreation budgets? Um then on the next page six is the final division, the water park operations. I just think one of the things we we talked I again I compliment Mr. Wright giving all these compliments tonight. Um I had the I had the opportunity to um take a tour of the water park and see all the um work projects that are being near completion. It's pretty exciting to see what's happening and um and when you do the grand opening I believe in June and we see we see families and youth coming back um the talk about like how many days to be open and all those kind of things. I think it's really important I think we just mentioned it last night um is that somehow maybe if we can track participation we talked about age groups you know what's our peak days what's our peak hours so then maybe we can kind of balance moving forward from what we learned.

Well, you have a you're going to I'm sure a lot of people are going to attend the opening. So, I hope we hand them out information that they can become engaged like after school program sponsorships. I mean, you have a wonderful opportunity. I would suggest let's use it.

Yeah. Yeah. And I do have the some of the numbers of some of the things that are proposed uh from last year in terms of sponsorships. So last year in our short run, we we raised uh $5,000 in sponsorships for special events. This year, current year to date, just getting started, uh we're at 9,000. So we almost doubled that. Um senior memberships, we're at $11,000 in senior memberships. Um the park picnic program, we're at $9,800. Uh special event permits, we're at $4,300. Uh we reached out to this organization, Razie, uh Foundation, and they gave us $3,000 to do uh sponsorships and uh for youth programs. So, we're going to use that money to draw down uh so whoever wants to do a summer camp uh in particular, sports or or traditional, they can draw out 3,000. Uh so, that's a total of $37,520 in the short time that we had. And I still haven't got had opportunity to go uh do sponsorships for the water park because we're down on supervisor. So, and we got all these projects, but that's still on our list. And I'm going to go to um Rotary uh next month and go talk about sponsorships for uh life jackets. So, uh we're we're we're working we're working on it. Uh just need a little bit more time and capacity is is is definitely a thing. So, uh close to $40,000 in in new initiatives. I know that question came up last night. So,

and I know there's been talking about sponsorships. I think it was Mayor Pro Tim mentioned it is like the the slide that needs to be reconstructed is maybe getting somebody to kick half a million bucks in and we can name it the whatever slide, right? So, um, you know, getting getting something like that to rename a feature in the park that would, um, one of the best money generators is Tom Manasco, and I reached out to him to have a meeting with Mr. Wright, Mr. Manasco, and me to do exactly that, to explore possibilities of raising funds.

Yeah. So that that's uh on the on the docket as well as uh we we got new scoreboards at the fields at Community Parkaw. Um so there's plenty of space up there to to put sponsorships up there. So uh that is also something that we're going to look into aggressively getting into uh once we kind of get through this this period in time. And I think one of the first signs we had mentioned to director Bunting is to get that worshaw sign replaced and get a really nice sign up there because that's just prominent right when you drive in the drive in the the front of the parking lot there. I mean it is a community we community park. It's a Worshaw sports complex I think. Yeah.

But the signage always had worshaw. Most people referred to it as a worshaw park.

Yeah. And one thing I was going to ask about sponsorships. I know that at the high school um with baseball, softball, football, different sports, we would have sponsors from the community that they would get like the banners to put on the outfield fence. Could be farmers, could be whoever. And the coaches would go out and they would find sponsors who would they purchase a banner, put it up on the outfield, and it'd be up for the entire season. And those funds would come to help support the athletic program. I don't know if we do anything like that with our um fields out at uh at the Worth Park we just talked about, but possibly you might find that businesses are willing to put their logo out there and and and support programs in the recck department by giving them advertisement space. I don't know if we've done that before, but

No, that's that's on the list. That's on the list for sure. And uh you know, one of the things, you know, working with uh public works and Scott's team, we've been able to really focus in on the user experience. So, the field conditions are so much better. I mean, we were about to lose adult softball to all the other cities. Uh last year, once we got the scoreboards up there and we redid the fields and fixed the mound, uh we got back to 18 teams. This year, we're at 24 teams. So, it's growing. It's but it's it's taking some time. So the teams are recognizing the efforts that the city is putting in. Um and the user experience is better. So now there'll be people for the sponsorship. So now we can go and say, "Hey, we we went from a league that was, you know, about to pass out. It's revived. Now come spend $500 for a banner. We'll put it on the fence or we put it up by the scoreboard." Um again, it's just taking a little bit more time than than I would like. I would love to just turn around and have a million dollars. Um, but it takes time to build the relationships and getting out of community, build our story and relationships, um, to to get these funds. But, uh, Sunun and John Mer, uh, stepped up big and and and donated some money. So, we're going to continue to to reach out to those that we currently have and and outreach to to more uh, small businesses and give everybody opportunity to to jump on board and support. So,

so last Saturday um we had our the jazz function at um Williams Land Park and on stage was a very large sign state farm gym lantern. And I I thought,

you know, if we did a two-year, you know, sponsorship on a scoreboard and things of that sort. Um I think you would I think you would get a lot of interest. Yeah. you know um you know not for 10 or 20 years but every two years or something like that so that at the end of two years you can increase the price but you know I I think there are a lot of opportunities on the various scoreboards and I saw that sign right on our stage everybody immediately saw it it was it was very effective and I just think it could work particularly with our sports programs

and Shahad just thank you for mentioning that you know we are making improvements and getting people to come back again and that's stuff we'd love to hear about from you as we're we have successes just so we can spread the word because we hear people come to city council meetings sometimes and talk about we have the worst water park in the world and all this stuff and really it's a beautiful water park we have beautiful sports fields and so beautiful soccer fields we just want to make sure that we uh we make sure we we promote that y thank you there any more questions on recreation

okay so now we can move back to the um general fund budget worksheets. So the first on page three is the legislative and administrative summary. This is in total for city council, city attorney, city manager, city clerk, city treasur, and human resources. Um so then we can just move into the individual um divisions that uh make that up. On page four is the city council budget. I'm sorry, I'm trying to find myself. Okay, so which one are what are we at

on page four, the city council's budget. So, um, on page four, oh, I'm sorry. All right, never mind. Is there any questions on that? Okay.

Um, next starts the city attorney's budget. There's the organization chart there for the city attorney on page five. And then the budget for the city attorney is on page six. So, the city attorney is going up by one attorney, but their their budgeted cost goes down by 250,000 between this year and last year under the contracts. I guess that's because we have we have more people and less contracts going out. Yes, it's on the um assump, you know, we no longer have a contract city attorney and the um assumption that some of the cases are being finalized. Um, and you know, I believe the city attorney will be looking at the the 26 27 number because that was actually put together from the um prior interim city attorney um prior to his departure because this, you know, budget was put together before the current city attorney was was hired. Um, so, um, I've asked that she evaluate that to see if that seems like a reasonable number based on the, um, current cases and whatever legal services are currently under contract.

And this is all general fund costs, correct, that we're looking at here. Yes. Okay. Okay. So, the next is the city manager budget starting on page seven. So, page eight is the um, I do have a question on seven. Yes. Okay. So under this uh looking at the various these are all approved positions correct. Yes.

And so just as a suggestion to the council I mean you know where I'm at on you know going forward with a grant writer and putting purchasing uh purchasing officer and administrative person in that that under the city manager. Um so I I would like to you know suggest as a holder at the present time we have administrative analysts there but I would suggest and the grant writer I would suggest the purchasing officer be a consideration for the future. I mean just to explore it find out where what how that would work and just come the city council will need to come back to it and have it make a decision on that.

Okay. Are you looking for uh salary information or what they would be doing or what specific? Yeah, I mean just you know for those jurisdictions and not only cities but in special districts as well they have purchasing officers. Okay. You know historically we had a purchasing officer and it changed but I I think just for more information how it would work you know so salary and classification.

Yes. And um just for umformational purposes for the council, there is a buyer position that's in our class specifications. Um that that's very old. I don't even know if those are current to what would be needed. It's weird that it's called a buyer to me versus a purchasing officer, whatever. So that definitely whatever the proper item. Yes, I'm just letting you know that we do actually have a position called a buyer and the cost of that in fiscal year 27 would be approximately 166,000 for the buyer but that's you know that cost could

could change if um you know if a purchasing officer is a more expanded duties and should have a higher salary for example but that'll be part of what's brought back. All right. Um I have a question under uh business expense. So it went from in 2024 from 72,000 to 112 and 25 to now 250,26. What what is what is the business expense? Do we know what that's for?

Yes. So part of the large increase in 2526 is Apoch the Apoch um training budgets in here for $75,000. And then with the addition of the public information officer, there is um $60,000 budgeted for public information, which is the newsletters and anything else that the PIO is putting out that were not that did not exist back in 24. Is this are those two new things? So that's 130,000. Um, okay. We have $75,000 for Apoch for training. Yes.

So, was this to send, you know, the the various people to what was Minneapolis? It's for whatever type of training they um complete. And I do we know what that is? I don't know if Captain Bitner can You don't know. It's fine. Has it been spent? That's It hasn't been There has been approximately a little over $30,000 spent year to date, I believe, for out of the APO for training. Yes. And conferences and Yeah. And Mr. Freigh, that the only training I'm aware of is one you mentioned, the out of state training. Okay.

Um there's been some internal training that's been uh conducted by our staff, but as far as training that has a cost to it, that's the only one I'm aware of.

Okay. And on that particular on on this subject, you know, um it has always been, you know, practice that you don't send a majority of council, you don't send a majority of boards and commissioners to, you know, um training and things of that sort because it constitutes a majority of of that decision-making body. Can we please revisit our travel policies? What what are what are the P tribal policies? Because I think in this one particularly with Apoch, I think there were like five five or so commissioners that went and so I don't know if that's kosher legally, you know, if that's doable because I would suspect that all five of them have talked about issues um that they um are involved outside of the public. So I I I do want to revisit what our travel policy is and get a better definition, you know, for ourselves as a council, but also for boards and commissioners what's allowable and what is not allowable on that particular item. I think the the settlement agreement requires particular training. I'm not absolutely sure. So we would have to I think it would be our only committee or board that would have that type of requirement. So, we could just visit that and see if that's true or not. But, you know, we used to send planning commissioners to the League of California Cities, but my recollection is that we only sent two a year, you know, um I think one three years and the other two years. And so, they rotated amongst themselves. So, it just seemed to me to be excessive to send so many of them. And I think this is one of those areas that we can tighten the belt and reduce some of the the costs. So, and that that would be

true for the city council as well as for boards and commissions. I'll take a look at the uh settlement agreement to see what it requires for training. Okay. And and if you could send us the travel uh policy policy. Yes. And then Don, the other So, that was 135,000. How about the other 130,000? So there's um 30,500 budgeted for business expenses, which would be conferences, dues, trainings for the city manager's office, and then there's 50,000 in um discretionary special project funds if there's um something the city manager wants to fund or initiate.

Could you provide us for this fiscal year and last fiscal year specifically how that money was spent in this category? Okay. So that's that's 80. How about the last 50? That should total. So just uh clarifying uh what you want to know what it was spent the discretionary fund the special or business expense everything that comes under business expense for fiscal year you know um 25 fiscal year 26 what specifically

in that line you know what happened who went how much did it cost yes I'll get and then regarding the legislative advocacy so That's about 12,000 a month it looks like we spend on our consultant that does the the towns in towns in Yes, I saw that uh one of the invoices. That's what it So that's 12,000. Okay. And we were we were talking about how a grant writer could offset some of that some of that cost. So we wouldn't need necessarily maybe 12,000 a month, maybe something less. We'd have to read I mean part of the town's contract is to do grant writing. If we in fact hired a grant writer, Townsen's contract should be reduced. Yes.

And I know Townsen has those DC and and Sacramento relationships that probably a grant writer wouldn't have, but I think balancing the two of those. Yeah. And there is um six months of vacancy savings built in for the grant writer and fisc 2627 just because uh job specifications need to be written, go to the union and all that. So just

Yes. Any other questions on the city manager budget? Okay. Next is the um city clerk's office and page 10 is the um budget detail and then there's detail of the contracts on page 11. So the records management $150,000 that's that's been there for a minute, right? Does that kind of keep getting carried over since that project has already That was in last year's um budget and got carried forward into the current year. Okay. So, we want to let the new city clerk administration see what they want to do with that, I guess, moving forward. Yes. I'm going to verify to see if they're going to use it this

All right. this year. On on this subject, uh we hired the consultant to do to look at all of our records and documents and things of that sort. What is the what is I What is the status of that? Um, I will have to find out to see what the status

because part of that discussion is that I guess in the vault that the city clerk has are all the old historical and so there was supposed to be a meeting with the city manager, the consultant, me and the Antioch historical society. So that was to do a tour number one, but number two, the write up if if it's acceptable to the city, write of a memor memorandum of understanding between the city of Antioch and the Antioch Historical Society with regards to storage, but also access for archives and things of that sort. So I the president keeps calling asking when that's going to happen. I if you could help me get so know exactly what is happening.

All right, I think we're good with that one. Okay. Um the next budget is the city treasurer's budget on page 12.

So the the investment service bank charges are going up what 50 grand or so which seems like a lot. Is there a reason for that? Um part of these are um the city's you know credit card processing fees. Um and then um you know that's a majority of the the increases for that. And then also our um investment services advisory fee is you know a percentage point based on the amount that's invested. So as if our investment balances grow the monthly fee goes up. Although a lot of this is the credit card fees. So is that a general fund funded item?

It is general fund funded. However, this division gets um you'll see the billings to departments. So it ends up zeroing out. So part of the charges circle back to the general fund, but then it gets allocated to water, sewer, any of the other city funds as they as they proportionately use those charges. So say like the water fund is 75% of it propane water. It's based on their cash balance at the end of the month, the cash position, they get a percentage. So, you know, whatever if the city's cash balance is a $100 city, you know, overall, if the recreation fund, for example, is 10% of that, they're going to get 10% of the expense for the month regardless of how many credit cards they Okay.

Okay. So, the next budget is human resources. The the question I have is with regards to contract the recruitment and onboarding software. What is that? Uh yes. So it's NEOGV is the system that we use to recruit. Yes. And what we've done is we've added the uh performance evaluation uh platform which is part of NEOGV as well. So um

we now have most of our um you know things done through NEOGV. So our performance evaluations are uh personal action forms. We're running it through eformms. So we're utilizing um Neil go a lot more uh to Okay. And you know we use consultants you know with regard to um recruitments. Is that in your budget here? Uh yes for the uh for the executive level. Okay. So where which one is it? Is it contracts? It's uh I don't see it here. There should be one that says recruitment. So there's recruitment. You see it? It says 44,700. Yes. So it's at the bottom where it says tracks.

And we have just one for now. Yes. Um and uh for two other positions they were actually funded out of uh city manager um account. So could you provide us you know what are the active recruitments going on be now in your your department as well as the city in your other department city manager's department so we know who is actually doing the rec recruitment and we might want to consider changes in the future. Okay. Are you talking about the uh executive level not the whoever whenever you use outside recruiters? Yes.

Whatever level that is. Yes.

And Anna, I think you wanted to point out something on the staffing. Yes. So, um, for the staffing right now, I do have that vacant, uh, HR manager. Um, I'm looking at other ways how I can, um, handle some of those duties internally. uh with the current staff I have just again to try to look and see how I can cut uh and look at the budget how I can um minimize some cost at least for one fiscal year. Uh so possibly looking at freezing um at one level or another uh a position that's not in these numbers yet. It's something that will be evaluated and um you know brought back if that's

and all the other departments are doing the same. Uh yeah. Well, we we'll be looking at I'll be meeting with the departments and looking at that and that'll be part of this list when we get to going over the the staffing and getting some direction from council as well. Is there any other questions on the um human resources budget? Next is the finance department budget. So if there's any questions on any of the divisions, we have administration, accounting, and operations. This this stays pretty steady. I mean, seems like it's pretty stable. And then we have a new auditor, correct? Yes.

Did Did that cost the same more or less than um it's a little bit higher than our prior audit contract? And as I noted, there's a little bit of a um overlap in fiscal year um 26. the contracts are a little bit higher in 26 than 27 because we're having the final closeout invoice from the prior auditors and then the new auditors starting and so that way it drops down. So just the overlap of those two contracts.

Okay. Okay. And then on page 20 is the non-dep departmental um budget and as um notated that fiscal year 27 transfers include the return of the EOC restoration of public fountains project money to the general fund as we discussed. Then the council agreed to pause the community civic enhancement grants. So you can see that number dropping where it says the community grants. Um a big win for the city is that our insurance premiums dropped. You can see that dropped 10% um due to the just all the um other claims kind of dropping off. So that was great for the city. Um and then the amount allocated, we see that the cost allocation plan um greatly increased the amount um being allocated out to departments. that really did help for fiscal year 27 in the um deficit reduction.

Don, do you know why the the Marina subsidy jumped up so much from it was it went down to 222 and 2425 and then it jumped up to 700,000? Do you know why it did did any single action cause that to jump up by so much like half a million? Um or go down by so much because it was 621 the year before 586. I cannot recall at the top of my head. I I'd have to um look into that. Okay. Because I know we have a lot of subsidies that just keep growing. This is one of them. And so just need to keep our eye on all of these costs that keep jumping up sometimes by a lot.

Okay. So just for discussion under the water the golf course and the water to as UCD. Yes. So I'm assuming I know that I think you had told us before it it um with the water discontinued to as AUSD you know it will go into the fiscal year but we are still holding to the $150,000. So should

well so one of the agreements for the Antioch Unified School District says a one-year notice. So that's why I still put the whole amount in 2627 because that may end up happening with the other one that doesn't specify an end date. But I did zero that out in 2728. So no, I saw that. But I I think I mean I don't know any M. Roger. Does anybody use Memorial Field? I mean is that I don't think they do. Yeah. So I I you know I think but they spend a lot of water there. So really

I mean you can see last year the it was $137,000. Well, I and that's why I'm looking at, you know, if you go to 23, you know, I mean, 59, 71, 137, 150. It's like nobody like according to what I heard Shahad say earlier is that there's just a bunch of uh gopher holes and it's it's unfit to use. I I mean, I don't know that that's a school district question on how they're watering or what they're using it for because we don't, you know, Well, I think there's some urgency. I mean, we're talking about $150,000. I I don't want this the drag.

I mean, the only the only thing I could think of in the school district that would that that build would be used for would be um for physical education for Park Middle School students because it's so it's adjacent to their on the go, but I don't think they would use it because of the unsafe conditions. Yeah. So, I I I I know we've talked about this. I mean, have we reached out to them? Nothing. Do we know where we're at? Nothing has been done yet because, you know, this was just discussed at a council meeting a couple weeks ago and we've kind of had some unexpected transition. So, we have to, you know, get with the city attorney's office um and then, you know, determine the staff and Well, this is going to be $150,000 savings to the city. So, I I hope the priority is much higher. Yes.

And and did owe the golf course. Yeah. And then on the on the business expense, Don, so in 2425 it was 595,000. It jumped, you know, jumped way up from 176 to almost 600,000. and it draws back down again. Can you let us know what that was for? Why that business expense item went up so much?

Curious what that was spent on. Okay. Um the next is the public works uh general fund operations budget. the summary on page 23 and then the individual um department budgets um follow. So on page 24 is public works administration. Is there any questions? Let me sorry go back to 23. Under services and supplies we're going from 8.9 to 7.5. Why?

Um I think we'll have to look at the individual division budgets to be able to see the Okay. I mean it's it's substantially less and so it's you know 1.2 1.3 million down 17% reduction. I just want to know why. Okay. So in the public works administration budget on page 24. Is there any questions on this? No.

Okay. public works street maintenance. On page 25 questions on this on page 26 is the signal and street lights division.

You know I do have a question on this. I know that Contraost County does the the signalization maintenance and I would that was my department and it's $560,000. Does it make sense for us to do it? I mean, why I mean, this is I mean, I can tell you this has been going on for 30 years, you know, that I'm aware of. You know, are we at a point that maybe we want to bring that service in house? We can look into it. Um, currently the county is functioning well for us and they do provide I know they're the only ones who do it.

They are. Um, I can look into the cost that it might take for us to staff up and become capable of doing that sort of work. Um, we currently do not have staff that would be able to perform that work. So, I'm curious, you know, what do they do? I mean, the I mean, lights are working. Do they come every year and do something? So, they're available all the time. Uh, there's an accident, somebody takes down a a traffic signal, it's the county that responds to it. Um, if there's timing issues that we might have or any concerns about how a traffic signal is functioned, we'll send the county out there to take a look and make sure that that that the controller is functioning properly. Um they does it happen often? Yes.

Okay. It just saying, you know, might be a place we want to want to visit because I think the county is the only vendor for I think all of our towns and cities. They take care of a lot. It does it does help us become or or be in contact with the neighboring cities. There are countywide projects that are going on and the county is involved with them and maintenance of those other cities also. Okay. Thank you. The next budget is facilities maintenance on page 27. Question.

Where where are all our millions of dollars of roofs in facilities maintenance? You know, we we had I think there was $3 million worth of roofs that needed to be replaced in the next year between heat everywhere. I think every roof in the city was going bad except for Nick Rodriguez fixing. Uh that's true. Uh many of them do need repairs. We've done work at the water treatment plant recently to to do those roofs are currently doing the work at at the Nick Rodriguez. This facility, the PD um I know for sure are also needing roof work. Maintenance yard is also another facility. All our facilities are aging and need some sort of roof maintenance if not replacement.

Are they in this are they in this year's budget? Those those projects I remember sometime we it was mentioned CIP or when Yes sir. There there's there's three or four projects that are new to the CIP this year that are involving roofing. So are those are Don are those numbers included? Those are general funds. I don't know. I would have to I would have to look. I they may be currently unfunded projects. Okay. But they need to be done. It's Yes, we do need to keep and we so we do maintain the facilities um and and they are repaired but yes these are talking about aging deteriorating facilities that are out outside their useful life and they need to be repaired or replaced.

Okay. Okay. So, I guess we just need to make sure that they're included if in this in this budget so we know what the overall general fund cost is going to be. And we can also determine, you know, the the severity of it, criticalness of it. Some of these are there. We know that they're aging. They might not necessarily have to be done immediately, but we know when they need to be done soon. That's why they're being identified now. Okay. Well, let's make sure we start them in winter. Okay. I'm just kidding. When does winter start? Sorry. All right. Okay. The next budget is public works parks maintenance. If there's any questions on this, are you on page 29? 28. 28. Okay.

Does this include I see that we have contracts are going from 2.5 down to 1.7 from this year to next year, which is a huge decrease, $800,000. I'm wondering what's fiscal year 26 did include landscape enhancements. If you can see the note, it was part of the overall the landscape enhancements that occurred also in the the lighting and landscape zones. Is that included in this line item then? The landscape enhancements is that in this that was in the 2526. Yes. So that's in the 2.5 million. Yes. Okay. And then does the $1.7 million reflect the um the new contract that we just awarded last night for $7 million for five years or three whatever it is.

Well, this is park maintenance. So I think that the contract comes partially under um landscape maintenance and then also the different zones that have contracts as well. So last night was that only landscape maintenance that didn't include parks or did it include parks? Sorry, I should know that. No, that was our that was our rideway. Um that was our rideway landscaping, not parks. Parks is parks contract is still being performed. Is that terraare? Yes, sir. Okay. So the people who are complaining about Terare, they're still going to see their trucks driving around and doing our parks. They will. They're currently working on Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's good to know.

But we also by going at the bid saved oursel over $2 million. So when does when does the park maintenance contracts come up? I I do not know off hand. I can check on that.

I I'd like to know. Thank you. Right. Okay. Is there any questions then now on the median general landscape budget? So again, this shows a contracts going from 530 to to 460 again is is our new so is our new landscape maintenance contract included in this and it's broken into different parts. Is that the way?

That's a question for director Bunting. I I do not know. I believe there was an escalator put on that because the contract hadn't been awarded. Um, we can check and make sure those numbers are still good, right? Because it went actually went down. So, it went from 535 down to 465 again under the contracts part of it. Again, I I can I can look into it and see. I know that there a lot of this was done some of this was done before the contract was open.

Okay. All right. Okay, the next is the public works alternative program. There's any questions on that? So the Can you just enlight me on the variant the footnote one again and allocations to public works and community and economic?

Oh, under capital improvement. So um engineering um which was division is division 15150 um has moved under community and economic development um however not the entire division of engineering uh and land development moved community and economic development. was a um public works inspector that was previously under that division that is remaining with public works and has been shifted to the capital improvements administration division. So when I look at personnel 2526 it's 174,000 and 2627 it's 507.

Yes. There also is a vacancy right now um of an engineer in the capital improvement administration division budget. So it's anticipating that being as well. Okay. So that's that's moving people and the vacancy. That's both of those combined. Yes. Um Scott, can you give us a little idea of how this moving people into community development and and economic development is going to work in relationship to the way it worked in the past with an inspector, an engineer or whatever's been moved.

So So currently we don't expect there to be much difference in what everybody will see um moving people around within the different departments. we're still all working together. Um the way it is right now um with the development engineering side within the community development department, it does localize your planning, engineering, and building kind of underneath the same department. In terms of how it functions in terms of relationship with engineers currently, it's it's functioning the same way it was. Um I'm I am the only licensed engineer with the city and the and the consulting engineers do consult with me as they're reviewing their plans and moving forward. Um as for how the process evolves, we are currently recruiting for assistant city engineer. Um that is a position that would be overseeing the development engineering currently that's slotted to fall underneath the community development economic development department also. So that would be your your lead engineer within the development engineering process.

So would the assistant city engineer fall under your department or under community development and economic development? I believe currently the assistant city engineer is slotted underneath community development. Yes, that would be under the engineering and development budget and community and economic development and then but then assistance engineer does traffic and a lot of other things too. So does that mean that they'll just kind of cross over and do different things? I believe the current position would be that the development engineering side is is including your development engineering um your traffic engineering your entitlements everything that would be development engineering would be underneath that assistant city engineer underneath the community development.

Okay. Is the idea that we can get rid of a traffic engineer if we get a assistant city engineer that can serve that function? That's always been the hope. I think that having a senior engineer or an economic or an assistant city engineer with a with a traffic engineering either background or license would be very beneficial to the city. Okay. I do too. So,

okay. The next is the police department budget. Um on page 31 is funded. There's a total of 152 positions funded in 2526. As of May 4th, there was 126 of those positions filled. For 2627, it reflects the increase of the 12 officers plus the addition of the policy director where you see the 165. And of course, as we move forward, we'll you know clarify with language of you know what money-wise is actually funded um you know in terms versus having the 117 officers. So taking the notes um given earlier. I have a question for one of our captains. Uh related to I I see pretty much the staffing stayed pretty much the same except a cor you guys took a corporal and made it a lieutenant. And so I'm just wondering being that a corporal is probably more of a street street type officer as opposed to a lieutenant. Why why you guys um did that?

Yeah, good question, mayor. So um we typically have six patrol crews and there's one corporal on every crew. That seventh corporal was kind of a position that was for a property evidence supervisor um which was kind of managed by a corporal. A couple years back we added a a civilian uh property uh evidence supervisor position and we also ma maintained that seventh corporal which has been vacant for some time. Um, so with all the changes in the department, um, we believe it made the most sense to convert that to a lieutenant position, um, to help manage some of our our other divisions, uh, specifically, um, dispatch, records, animal services, and so forth. So that that's the plan for that position.

Okay. Okay. but more of a administrative uh manager position as so as far as like for a 100 for a a police force of 115 say this breakdown of upper level officers you know command staff as opposed to officers on the street this is a good a good breakdown in your opinion absolutely yeah I don't believe we're we're topheavy at all that's what you're you're implying good good balance with a good supervision and management okay because that's always that's always a question that seems to come up is how many officers do we actually have out there on the street, you know, doing doing enforcement or whatever. So, just want to just want to make sure that as we're seeing these changes that uh we understand how why they're happening. Oh, absolutely. Right. Thank you. Thank you.

I have a question for the city manager. When you look at the not Thank you, Mr. Brner. When you look at the positions, I mean, so as we go down, you know, there are, you know, there's three vacant lieutenant positions. there's three vacant you know sergeant positions and on how how do you prioritize between the police department and all other departments? I mean because sometimes I mean the complaints we hear is oh everything's focused on the police department and other services in the cities are are suffering that it's not a balanced approach.

Yes. No. So um I do understand the uh importance of police um officers for public safety. So um I do have uh technicians assigned to different uh departments. So I do and I understand the police department because of the recruitment process. It's a lot more uh complex than any other recruitment. Then I do assign um one and a half uh of my staff to kind of work with uh police department. So and to approach the you know and to look at the priority I work closely with the departments and I let them know you know to let me uh to tell me their priorities of which ones are more important to fill. So in this case we started working with uh recruiting for the corporal sergeant first and then they requested to post for the lieutenant. So I work really closely with them and you know I listen to what their needs are.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. 32 is the police department summary. Um the divi there is division budgets that follow. The only thing I do want to point out because it looks a little strange is the 1% sales tax increasing 43%. It's only because until I got direction from council this evening, the entire sales tax amount was put in here. I didn't want to make the assumption the split was the same. So based on you know the sales tax table that I provided earlier, the amount allocated to the police department in fiscal year 2627 would be 14,79,558. So not much of a change from the current year and with the next draft budget, you know, reflect the um 701515 split um as in the current year. So I just wanted to point that one piece out really quickly.

The sales tax public safety what is that that gets passed through um Contraosta County. Um it's an allocation formula done by the state um and then it comes through contrast county but all jurisdictions get um money passed through and it's specifically for police services. Yes. Okay. And where where in this summary of of revenues is the CFD money that comes in? It's it's shown as a transfer in because those are separate special revenue funds to collect the assessment. So, is that is that all CFD money? A million dollars a year that we get from the CFDs currently.

And then there's there's a little bit of a portion, not much. Um, there's a few hundred,000 actually that comes in from the Supplemental Law Enforcement Services Fund grant. Um, and then there is uh that's about 300,000 little 350,000. Um, and then there's some um Edward Burn Justice Memorial Grant funding. And I believe that's about 40,000 26 27 and the remainder is the CFDs. So about a million and a half dollars comes from the CFDs then. Okay, that's that's good. Okay.

Okay. So the police administration budget is on page 33. If there's any questions on that and the contracts detail for that is listed on page 34. So on number 34, the outside investigations consultants and software 351,000. What is it? I'm sorry, Mr. Fredus. Which line item? It's on page 34. Outside investigation, consultants and software 351,000. Yeah, that that's mostly for all our our outside investigations and a lot of internal investigations are outsourced.

Oh. to uh to consultants or investigative firms. That's what that's for. And also the the software is the management of uh of those investigations, which would be a system called IIA Pro, which tracks all that. Okay. And I'm just curious, you know, evidence and abandoned vehicle towing. 155,000. That seems like a lot of cars. Well, I believe a big chunk of that is also the RVs. The RVs. Yeah. So, if I'm not mistaken, um you know, there was a period in time where there there were a tremendous amount of RBs um on the streets and um a lot of the tow companies don't like

Oh, I I just looked at that number and I thought, my god, how many cars are we towing? Yeah. I mean, and we we have, you know, four employees that are towing vehicles all throughout the day and it's just it's non-stop work. There's a lot of abandoned vehicles in town and and RVs. So, we have an impound yard. Where do they take them? We contract with a number of different towing companies who have who have um Okay. have yards to storm. If it if we do impound it, like for evidence purposes, we do have a place on site. We also contract with a tow company that has a secure impound lot.

Okay. I just the number just seemed large to me. And Captain Bitner, I I don't I don't know if it's later in the report under a different division, but there was talk about a building or adding on to storage on site as opposed to having to take it somewhere else and all the time that was involved. Has that is that included in this budget is something that has been done or is being done? That's in the works. That was uh funded through a CIP project. So, I believe it's $300,000 for a structure and roughly $100,000 for the the pavement and foundation. And that's um paid out of the development impact funds, not out of the general fund.

Okay. But that but that was going to save money, the general fund money, correct? And as far as our other storage that we were going to be doing elsewhere. Absolutely. We're spend a lot of money storing um evidence offsite that we have to we have to store and we're mandated to store. If we can build a structure and store it on site, that will save us roughly 65,000 a year. Scott, is that something that's a priority for us to to do that, get that project going? Okay. Yeah, I've been working with Mr. Bunting on it for I think anytime we can save 65,000 a year, we, you know, today is the best day to start. So,

yeah, we're in the process of sending out an RFP for the structure, which we uh identified a few um vendors uh here in Northern California that can do the structure for us. just a matter of just there's a lot that goes into the leveling it, paving it and doing the foundation and working with Scott on that. Okay, perfect. Okay, the next is the police compliance and professional standards division. This was established um to meet the requirements of the DOJ agreement. I do have a question. It's footnote number three. Personal a vehicle for use by this new division. Is that an assigned vehicle to somebody? Yes, sir.

Who? We we have three assigned vehicles. One is for Mr. Bower is behind me. He has a vehicle and also for the lieutenant in the division and also for the sergeant. Okay. Thank you. We can't have uh Captain Bower walk here, so we we got to get him a car. Well, he can walk here, but he can't. It's about Hi, Bruce. The next is the uh police cadetses um budget if there's any questions on that. Oh, under before that under police compliance. So we have this business expense again that's 160 going to 210. What what is that's all training. Why is it new? It there there was none before 25 that was zero.

Well we had to establish the division in 2526. There was just a little bit of we started in 24 25 26. We're bringing the staffing on board. Um and so there was some vacancy savings still in 2526. we're anticipating, you know, to have everybody on board and whatever uh training and um is needed under that division. So, is this new is this new new training above and beyond what was being done before? Yes. Yes. And those and we can explore that as well. Um I know that seems like a big big chunk of money and it is. Um and we're still kind to determining if we're going to be using um all of that money.

Okay. Um, so it's, you know, when it comes to potential cost savings, that's an area we can look at. That's great. If you, when you find out if there is, let Don know and then we can, you know, keep working. And this is all for police officers. It's not like for the APOA. No. So, we have a separate line item for departmentwide training for our our officers and um our officers that are going through the the police academy and so forth and the post regular or mandatory training. This is uh in addition to some of the trainings that are tied to our agreements. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Then on page 36 is the prisoner custody um budget. There's any I'm sorry. Under police cadets. How many police cadets do we have?

I'm stand up here. I need to quit sitting down. Um it's good exercise. Yeah, we don't have any right now, sir. So, um we we suspended our cadet program um during COVID and we're in the process of restarting it now. Okay. So, two, five, uh, zero. I know, but I mean, what what how many do you want? We like to get back to where we're at with about 20 or so. As you know, that that program's a great program. It's, uh, benefited a lot of our current employees here. Yeah. Me, myself, uh, Captain Cook. Um, so trust me, we want to get that program back up and running. And it's

I just for $10,000, it's not a lot. So, that's why I'm raising the question. Yeah, it's pretty there's not a whole lot of expenses. Um I mean we buy them uniforms which are pretty minimal and uh they do great work for us and it's a great recruiting tool. So Okay. I have a question on that. Um Dear Valley High School, do they have ROC program? Good question. Um I heard that I heard they did that. I'm just curious if there's any potential to collaborate with since you have young people at the high school level in an ROC. Sounds like Sounds like a school district lison on committee. I mean it might be something to we haven't met lately but

they have Mr. Roach did have one at Antioch High when you're there because we we never had ROC at Antioch High School but I'm pretty sure in the last two years Deer Valley introduced ROC and is that correct? Yeah, I believe so. And and so with that interest at Deer Valley High School possibly you would have students there that might be interested in that program. I'll I'm going to be at their banquet coming up later in the month so I can mention it to him. I don't believe Anniac High School has it. Although we used to have uh officers who would teach the law uh courses there at Antioch High School.

Yeah, I know that that was a great opportunity. We would like to explore expanding that. I know we do we do have some staff that have assisted in some of their criminal justice courses at Deer Valley. Yeah, I know there's a number of students who uh who serve as officers in the PD that are graduates from Ania Valley because I see many of them uh who've stayed local which is nice. Absolutely. Would that have to be approved by the school board? Out of curiosity or that program or bringing officers back into the school? Bringing officers back into school probably would be, but I'm talking about the ROC program. Having students have No, no. I I get

on the external side of it, I think would be much easier. Okay. Next is the um prisoner custody budget if there's any. So, it says it's it's going from 366 up to 525 and that says salary savings. What is there a vacancy in in the prisoner custody? So there's community services officers are allocated to that division and we have some community. So that that's a community service officer. Three vacancies. Okay. Got it. How's the recruiting going for them? About as well as it goes for police laterals.

You know the um CSOS we we always get a good amount of applicants. We we have a internal posting that just closed. I think there's some testing yesterday uh for that. So, we're hoping to get two two um csos from the internal testing and then the external testing. Um I know that's that's we I would it's not open, but it happens regularly and we have a pretty good success in filling that. So, we're hoping to have those three uh positions filled here pretty quickly. Okay, great.

Okay, the next is the community policing budget. Um there's the sales tax as I pointed out before, but the contracts detail is on the next page on page 38. So, Mr. Mayor, I I think we need to decide how we are dividing the 1%. Is it 70 1515? Are we maintaining what we did last year this year? Are we changing it? Yeah, the 70 155 15 that's what we discussed. You guys said to go ahead and move forward with how it was split. So, I just it's showing up. So, I just want to confirm 7. Last year was 70 155. I'm fine with that this year, but we bumped it up. Yeah. So, I'll I'll um update the budget spreadsheets. Like I said, this was just in here because the council had

I think I think my question again is how the money is allocated within that 7 70 1515 15 and what's what qualifies as quality of life, what qualifies as youth because there's a lot of different things that could

well for purposes of recreation for example everything is youth. So the a whole amount goes towards the program services and staff. Same with the youth network services division. For police it offsets all these, you know, $60 million in expenditures. We don't say it paid for this pencil. It paid for this patrol. It offsetting the entire, you know, public safety in the police department. And then when you when we get to the um public safety and community resources budget for that offset, it, you know, offsets the um in the youth side, the youth stipen program um violence intervention and prevention program. Um you know, so we'll we'll see those budget. Is there any questions on this community policing budget?

Okay. Next is the traffic division budget. It's on page 38. I'm sorry. I did have one on the shops shop spotter. You know, it's a 525,000. So, is it working for us? I mean, we kind of need a report, I think, sometime in the future. Just Yeah, it's absolutely working. It's a beneficial tool, but I believe that's all grant funded. Is that okay? I I still I mean yeah we haven't heard we haven't heard anything about it and so question I would have is is it working? Yeah part of it is grant funded um 200 I believe it's 7570,000 a year is grant funded for three years and then the other portion of this is the pre-existing shot spotter we have which is not grant funded.

Yeah. So we're we're paying a portion of that 500 but a good other half is is grant funded. So, um, it's definitely a benefit to the city and as we continue to explore like a real time intelligence center, Shot Spotter is kind of integral part of that. Um, so I'd say it's when you say it's it's it's working, I I I'll say it's it's beneficial to our our patrol teams.

I just think it's a positive and we never we never tell our community, you know, we have this and this is how it works and this is why it works and these are the benefits. Yeah. And the main benefits are typically if there's a shooting in town, we get callers. We have victims calling, um, witnesses calling, nearby residents calling, but every once in a while we have a gunshot or shooting where nobody calls. Um, so I guess if you figure that if it if it, you know, directs us to one gunshot victim that needs some help and we got no callers, but the shot spotter um directed us to to the victim, then it would it would be a win. So really all it takes is kind of one. I just think it's something positive to report to the community. That's that's really the point.

When does the grant funding run out on this to So we received the money in advance. We already got the 735,000, but we have to, you know, spread uh the um expense over three years for that. So So when's when's the third year? When does it when does it expire? Um I would have to look at I think this year might be the second year. Okay. Okay. So, I guess so is that something we would reapply for in the future?

Absolutely. There there seems to be a lot of grant funding geared towards Shaw Spotter. Um so, as the the grant uh nears to a close, we'll make sure that we're exploring all options to to extend that. And if if we can't explore grant or if grant funding isn't an option, then we'll have to do a a deep assessment on how beneficial it actually is. Well, on that point, I noticed Congress Congress member Martier provided millions of dollars to a lot of police services and so that's certainly something that we should, you know, be proactive and look at that uh and basically with if we have will we will we will have a new member of Congress representing the Antioch area and that might be a very good opportunity for us, but you'd have to get in early have a very very thought out program because you're asking for federal funding.

Yes. Is next week early enough because we're heading to start asking. Well, you should. Yeah. I mean, you're going to you are going to I assume you're going to visit harder, right? You are. Yeah. It's one of our So, we'll we'll mention it and ideally we'd like to expand it citywide if we could. So, right now it's not citywide. That would that's what the grant would do. I mean that's they're special they're pork money funding, you know, from members of Congress. So, but you have to get in early. It has to be thorough and you have to get their consent. So, that that would be a great topic for you all going to Washington DC. Right. Okay. Any um questions on the police traffic budget which is on that page under the contracts.

Okay. And then police investigations is on page 39. There's any questions on that? uh special investigations unit is on page 40 if there's any questions on that. Then on page 41 is communications which is the dispatch center the contracts listed. There's any questions on this? So personnel is just assuming we're going to have full funding or full uh staffing. That's why it jumps up. Yes.

Almost a million dollars. Okay. Um, Office of Emergency Management is on page 42 as well as uh community volunteers. Uh, facilities maintenance is on page 43 as well as the animal control support which is the um subsidy to the animal services fund. Again, we need to move forward with the hiring of the manager position. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then the police facilities maintenance. Um I think you said it's in the CIP, Don, but just making sure that that the cost of a roof or whatever whatever we need to do is captured.

Yeah. That public works will have to get all those costs and um let you know where is identified in the CIP because if it's not funded, you know, council will need to make the decision on what to do about that. And Mr. Mayor and council, so that that 1.6 six. You see at the furniture and equipment on page 43. Um, if that raised any questions, just to remind you that that's for the PD improvements that was approved. So, new uh office equipment, paint, carpet, and so forth. Every 30 years, whether it needs it or not, we'll we'll be doing that. So,

okay. On the next page, the police department is done. You're off the hook now, Captain. That's it. I'll be around all night if any further questions. Thank you. Um on page 44 is the parks and recreation administration support. This really just um accounts for the um subsidy to the recreation programs. You can also see that was where the transfer to the puit capital improvement fund um council agreed to pause um the transfer of that. So otherwise mainly it's just the um subsidy. Um, then on page 45 is the public safety and community resources department.

So, this is an issue for the city manager. You know, I don't know how many times I've asked and it seems appropriate at this time to do a name change for this department so that we can I would request that we put it on the 26th of May. either the council wants to change it or doesn't want to change it, but because we're doing these budgets, it would be nice to know and make that name change so when it gets produced, it there's a there's a match. Yes, I actually spoke to uh the director today and that is the plan. We talked about bringing something. Thank you. Okay, sounds good. All right.

Okay. Um, and the director is not here. So, uh, myself and the acting city manager will be do the best to ask address any questions you might have on these that aren't already addressed. So, the summary is on page 46, but then there's the individual division budgets which I explained. So, one is the youth network services division um, which is partially funded with the 1% sales tax as you can see the 961,000 offsetting. So there is uh personnel within the youth stipens and then the contracts. So the contracts are for CBOS or um community based organizations to run youth programs such as basketball, tutoring, dance and camps.

Can we get a breakdown on that um that $420,000 how that's how that breaks out between the different programs? And I and I asked for that in relationship to what director Wright came up and said, you know, there's other programs that they can possibly be providing as well and just see where they intersect with each other. Okay. So, you're talking about all the contracts for Yeah, the contracts, the $420,000 contracts. I I I apologize. I did I want to go back to 46 just for a quick one. This is under services and supplies. We're going from 1.6 6 to 2.9 million. Yes, that is because of the AQCRT and home key.

Okay, thank you. Yes. So, the next budget is the housing and homelessness. As you can see, the homeless services is increasing to $1.5 million. That's um 1.2 million for Homekeep Plus, assuming that project moves forward. and the remainder of that is for a safe parking program and other resource fairs for unhoused residents. How much do we spend on the safe parking program? I do not know. I thought that was CDBG funded.

I think there is separate CDBG funding. I'm not sure um between the two between the 360,000 what is allocated for safe parking and what's for resource fairs. We'll have to follow up with the director. Okay. I'm sure there is CG funding. There is

I don't I I don't know the dollar amount. One thing I wanted to say about the um the uh home key plus um as we stated earlier, we we weren't able to conduct any action items at the CDBG uh meeting that was scheduled last month. Um but the recommendation from staff, one of the items was that there are funds that can be reallocated if we should move forward with the purchase of the property. I think we the recommendation from staff was 800,000 from CDBG that comes from the hope solutions. You may recall hope solutions I think was I want to say it was 2.2. And so that money coming back, there's a sunset period of time in which we have to spend that money down or we end up using it, losing it. And so I think the recommendation um was to take a portion of that which I think um what was shared at the st with the meeting that we didn't weren't able to take any action on. I think it was up to 800,000 was set aside for the purchase of the property should Home Key Plus be uh approved by the state, which it looks like it's going in that direction. Um so I just wanted to let share that information. So if that uh Homekeep calls for any I think it was 750,000 was approximately was going to be towards the purchase. My understanding from our last conversation with CDBG is that there is an allocation of up to $800,000 that is available to use towards the purchase that wouldn't come out of general fund.

Yeah. So, we um in fiscal year 2526 council when we adopted the budget, we put 400,000 in general fund money towards that cost um because we didn't realize it was an upfront for 750. We thought it was going to be like a prated by the time it happens. It'll only be like 400,000. I don't think anything's going to happen by June 30th. So, um, you know, we'll evaluate that to take that out at least of June 30th, 2026, but we may have to put the full 750 into 2627. I don't know if that would reduce the 1.2 depending on how this all shakes out, but I do remember at one point that um, Terry House, the consultant, had said, I believe that and and and please the committee correct me if I'm wrong, but that if we didn't spend that money by May, we wouldn't be able to use it at all. So, I'm not even sure if that's a possibility, but that I'm not the expert in that. I just know that Terry House

this month. Yes. But I know T I believe Terry House had said that at some point. I'm trying to remember. So, but I that's up for the you know, subcommittee. I'm I'm definitely not the expert. I just know I had heard that in conversation and so we just want to make sure if that funding is for sure going to be available if this rolls in July, for example. So, this sounds like a city manager needs to reach out and get that answer because I would much prefer to use CDBG money and save the general

fun and and that's why I brought it up and I and I know that um our our housing staff, which Dillia is one of the two one of the three employees, has that information. So, we really need them to provide that. And I know that we're still trying to get a CDBG meeting date on the 22nd. We'll see if we can or not cannot do that. But I do know that that was one of the recommendations from Terry House and the city staff to allocate up to 800,000. I don't recall there being a deadline

and maybe it was that the allocation have had to happen by May versus the spend down. And I think that's why the May 26th date is so important is because we have to have confirmation adoption by the council by May 26 to move forward and meet the the timelines that are required of us. That's why the 26th is the last day that we need to uh have those recommendations come to the council is my understanding. And if that is the case, that will definitely be positive news for the general fund because we'll be able to take the 400,000 out of 2526 and boost up the, you know, reserve balance. So that, you know, definitely something we actively follow up on.

Did you have anything built into 2627? Did you have the rest of it? No, just the um 1.2. Okay. So you didn't have the the balance of the 7. Oh, just because there's been such limbo with the home key and what's going on and now particularly with the status of the potential site. Just there's a lot of moving parts with it, right? Yes. So, in speaking with director uh Cabral today, she did mention we do have to bring it on the 26 that item uh for a public hearing to take action and that would be the last date. Yeah. I think that's why that dates a definitive date. I mean, if it if it was a if we are able to have the subcommittee meet that would be great. We can't and so we you know if not

if the meeting is still public even though we had a speaker who criticized you know it is a public meeting that individual can can have his say.

Yeah. And and basically um the standing committee can't make any decisions anyway. We basically bring it to the council for review and adoption discussion and that's what would happen absent of a CDG meeting anyway. Um so yeah I do think that that is import that we have that. The other question I I think with our um city attorney or whoever's looking into the um hope the hotel home key plus program is I believe it's a calendar year of 12 months from when um you know the application is approved or adopted which you know 12 months later would be about May of 27 um or possibly June. I'm not sure how the calendar works. My question would be is the 1.2 commitment when does that come in for the city? Is that um once it's comp the project has been built and gets started up or is it sooner than that? Because when we're talking about a 1.2 commitment of the Homekeep Plus, when does that actually required? The state's going to provide up to I believe 34.9 35 million. Um, and so where do does the city's um commitment of 1.2 annually kick in? Does it kick in um prior to the startup of the program or is it when we start up the program? I'm not sure the timeline for that.

It would be good for us to know. Absolutely. Because you know potentially say it's six months in, we could save you know $600,000 in the 26 27 budget. So yeah, it sounds like there's still a few questions. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I have no other further questions on that. On the next page, we have the violence intervention and prevention division and then the um administration division. So under contracts, that's going to 510 next year and then to a million the following year.

Yes. So the for fiscal year 27 that's 480,000 for the AQCRT for six months and then there's also 30,000 the remaining 30,000 is for lead implementation. And then um that bumps up in 2728 of course not because that's assuming that community response team funded for an entire year. But again that's not an adopted budget. That's just projected if the city um continues to provide this. And what about personnel for um it goes from 122 to 336.

Right. because the Calbip grants will be done and um for 26 and uh for fiscal year 26 it's paying for a portion of the public safety manager. So then so then it pays for all of it next year then is that what you're saying? So in 2627 50% of the position is funded by a grant in another in one of the special funds in 2728 that grant is gone. So then the general fund picks up the full cost unless we're successful if there's another round of Calb another cohort that they can apply for in the city successful in getting that to pay for a portion of the salary. I thought Calvip went into 28. I thought it went longer than into 27 but

um it goes through um up I can't remember the exact uh date. It was in one of the other uh budget worksheets for the Cal fund.

Okay. So, if there's no other further questions on this, we'll move into the community development. Community and economic development. I need to change that title there. I missed that on page 40. Um, but it is community and economic development. I apologize. I I missed that. Got to make sure I catch all the name updates going forward. So, on um page 50 is the summary of the department. Um and again um the sales tax you'll see it's 100% declined just because it doesn't reflect any money for code enforcement which we'll be updating that um with the split shown on there. So it's individual div uh division budgets on page 52 is the uh administration budget

on on page 550 Don. So building permits is going down $700,000 from this year to next year. Yes. Um however with the um user fee study um should uh we'll be incorporating the increase in changes and that number will be um bumping up with the user fee study. What I guess my question is what what is you know kind of the perception I get is that you know development's ramping up especially in the multifamily space and so I'm just wondering why we're thinking the the numbers are going to go down next year as opposed to state level. I have Hillary Brown, administrative analyst for the department here. This Good evening.

Hi, Hillary.

Hello again. Um, this uh fiscal year, we did have a a couple of larger um commercial projects that we build for that really did have a pretty big impact. I mean, hundreds and thousands of dollars over what we would probably normally project um even given the continued development that we're seeing and planning for that is already entitled. So, just kind of wanted to touch on on that. I didn't necessarily want to in addition to what we would project as an increase for any fee um user fee study um adoptions and increases. I didn't want to like over project and then you know you never want to overpromise and underd deliver, right? But I think that um after speaking with Craig and looking at which um items had already been built for that we knew were entitled and then which ones were that was sort of where we arrived.

Okay. because we these these um multif family projects we've approved I think three four or five of them so far that are probably two $300 million worth of construction there's still a few that are not fully entitled but yes and we do anticipate that as well that's kind of why this year was higher than last fiscal year you're anticipating some of those are going to be in this fiscal year cor we we think that this upcoming fiscal year we believe at least one maybe two and that's kind of would reflect very closely uh maybe a a little bit under than what we did this fiscal year. So that was kind of why. And then are you expecting the second DECA 400,000 foot project to go up this next year? Well, let's hope. Did you build an end to your numbers? Yes, we did. That was part of our projections as well.

That's probably Yeah, we're seeing um an increase in ADUs, but we don't really receive a very high, you know, so it's residential is sort of waning sometime, right? And so there's there's trends and so we're trying to look at that as what sort of based on what we know to be entitled, what we can anticipate based on some current trends and then previous fiscal years. It's it's a little bit of always guesswork. Okay. Thank you. And then you know the next um budget sheets that come it will update you know because we've done the user fee review and gotten consensus on what items to bring forward you'll update with the you know Hillary has already prepared revised projections based on that. We just didn't build it into here because when this was put together, the user fee um session hadn't been done yet. So, not approved.

So, still on page 50 under use of funds personnel. So, between the fiscal year 2627 uh 6.6 versus almost $8 million and it's personnel. So, then when I turn to page 51, we we have 37 employees in both fiscal year, I mean from fiscal. Yes. So when and I will just say it's uh you know that engineering um services land development um part of the year up until a month ago was under public works and so those positions while it says funded 2526 you know it's really moving fully that division in 2627 under um community economic development plus there are you know vacancies in the um economic development division um that are Um

but these are funded pos these are just the funded positions

right but the the reason that increase in the salaries is the position moves from engineering under public works to community econom economic development plus we have the three vacancies of in the economic um development division. Okay. So then um on the administration budget on page 52 if there's any questions on that. And next is the economic development which you can see was formally under legislative um and administrative um previously that we changed the division number and then moved it under. It's a consolidated budget, but I just wanted to reflect in past budgets where it was shown.

So, that one has under marketing and programming $430,000 for next year off of 125 from this year. Yes. Uh I think we should drop that down to $300,000 for the time being until we get folks in there that um know what they're going to do with that money. That just be my recommendation. I would say can we knock it down 150,000 make it a nice again to your point there there's no right staffing in there right now. Yeah. The likelihood of of I mean it's just you know again not to jump ahead or speak on behalf of but the likelihood of being able to get the staff in and then to be able to secure those sort of marketing program. How about $230,000?

So if we reduce it down to 200,000 yeah reduce it down to 200,000. It's 125 this year. So that's almost doubles what we did this year. Can I have a 200? Sorry. No. Yeah. I I I think that's a appropriate Okay. Um Okay. Is that right? So we will do that. All right. Okay. Um next is the um development land planning services. There's questions on this budget. And the big expenditure on here is for the general plan up update.

Any questions on this budget? No. Okay. The next is the um code enforcement budget on page 55 if there's any questions on this. Okay. On the next page is the engineering and land development. This is the division from public works that moved into under the community development umbrella. Then um um building inspection is on page 57 if there's any questions on that. Hillary already gave the explanation regarding the permits. If there's anything else and that Hillary that that um division is fully staffed.

It is. Okay. Yes. We love this. And they're out there. Planning planning and building are fully staffed. Okay. Yeah. Well, and mine do we consider my operations? We do operations administration. We're three people but we are fully staffed. We are mighty. Many but mighty. Yes. All right. Okay. This concludes these budget worksheets. So, if you're ready to kind of go through the vacancy um report. Yeah, we're going to take a five minute recess. Meeting is recessed at 7:33 p.m. Thank you. Yeah, trying to find the money for

All right, welcome back from our recess. Mr. Clerk, you take the role, please. Thank you. Meeting is back in session at 7:43 p.m. Council member Torres Walker is absent. Council member Wilson is absent. Council member Roachche here. Mayor Prom Freighus, present. Mayor Bernell, here. Thank you. We have a quorum at 7:43 p.m. All right. We'd like to move on to uh these um position sheets now that um the acting city manager prepared and handed out to us. So, walk through these. Yes. And maybe explain explain what they are and what our purpose is here, what we're doing.

Yes. Uh so, uh I want to first thank all the department heads. Uh so today I actually last minute asked them to help me put together um what the uh impacts were if we were to not fill the positions. Uh so right uh this document in front of you is the a list of all of the general fund vacancies. um along with where the recruitment status and any notes or any impacted programs, how are they essential to city functions um and uh any consequences if they're not filled. So um we can go through if you like um each by each line item and then you could let us know uh city council can decide whether they would like to tell us to hold off. uh some positions we've already uh either given a conditional job offer so I would not recommend doing anything with those but any other ones uh that you would like us to pause we can definitely pause on those recruitments

do you let us know on which ones have been given a conditional job off okay perfect before we start you know so how many positions are we advertising now I mean how many classifications uh so we have multiple and different uh phases in the recruitment process So right now uh we have about four um the police department there's our continuous but I would say uh four uh recruitments that we have active uh open and when we say open I assume some are at that point of interviews for position.

So the four that I'm referring to are the ones that are currently posted and open uh to receive applications. Okay. Uh the rest are um if they uh there are any phase in the process. So some could be either interviewing uh we could be um what else will we be doing? Uh background checks but those would be the ones that we've given conditions. So when we go through here you you'll let us know where some of these are. Yes. Okay. Just one one thing I would say, you know, on the document that I was referring to earlier.

Um I made notes from it. This was on April 15th. Um I don't know how much has changed in the last three weeks, but from looking at the um nonp police citywide vacancies back on April 15th. Um the city attorney's office, it it said pinning direction. city manager's office. The two positions there was no action taken. Um city clerk ineligibility was under review pending direction. So nothing there. Human resources that was an internal employee acting says.

So in going down to public works, what I my notes here is that there was the street maintenance worker one and two second round interviews. Um then the other two was there was one that is assistant junior engineer was candidate background. So that would be two positions that I see two within public um works community development from what I could see it looks like um that is the one department where there was some activity because it says administrative analyst second round then it look says the next three positions socioeconomic development economic development program manager those were conditional job offers extended and then it says code enforcement manager department interviews on April 7th. I don't know if that happened or not.

Um, so from looking at what was provided on April 15th, majority of the positions there's been no activity with the exception to when you get to public works and community development.

Yeah. And we have some updates. Um, uh, Mrs. Cortez did, you know, we got current because I'm sure as you've heard us mention before, it's like daily something happens and sometimes we make an offer or they accept but then they decline. So this is the most current as of today. Um so some of them the status is still the same but as Miss Cortez Mrs. Cortez goes through this you'll be able to see the current status. So just from the earlier discussion, what is the the budget deficit? And and so looking at chart A, you know, it's $9.7 million and then the rate stabilization transfer of $5 million. And so it comes down to 4.7. So the decision we've made is you know to use the rate stabilization funds for this fiscal year 2526 but you know in reality looking at the following year you know the deficit goes up to 11.5 and then 18.4 and that's without any colas or other enhancements to salary and benefits.

That is correct. So, um I mean this is, you know, the the difficult part for us and every position that's been approved always feels like a victory for the the the department head and things of that sort. Um but really, you know, we've been admonished time and time again uh correctly by the director of finance that we need to take action and we need to be proactive versus waiting till absolute disaster. because back then we would be doing massive layoffs and that's I don't think something any of us want. So I just underscore that point and I guess the only thing I would add to what Mayor Prom has said is that every just because departments have vacancies doesn't mean that every department shouldn't be looked at as far as what what the needs are. Just because a department's completely filled doesn't mean that we shouldn't be looking only at the ones who who have vacancies just because for whatever reason they haven't been able to fill them yet. So I just like to make sure everything across the board's looked at.

Yes. And that will be something that I will be uh addressing as well when I meet with each department head uh to go over the budget with uh director Merchant and we will look at those uh positions as well. Okay. So, do we want to walk through the walk through the sheet or is this just moreformational and we can just page?

Yeah, we would like to walk through and have direction on if as uh acting city manager Cortez said if you know you want us to to pause for you know one year freeze it you know consider a later time or um you know continue to fund that in the budget. Let's just start you know on the first item is cso general fund three positions how many csos do we have right now Phil right now I believe it's we have 10 nine is it a total of 12 we're at nine

right so I'm going to suggest that we delete a position unless there is you know to freeze a position I guess I not delete but to freeze a position if you want to. Yes, please.

Yeah, M. I I definitely understand the position we're in. Uh I just wanted to maybe give you a little more information on the CSO positions. Um I know it says here it's, you know, if we be cutting more Cso positions, it's basically it'll just put an additional delay in our non-emergency calls for service. So, our CSOS do a wide range of duties, you know, from uh prisoner transports, taking crime reports that um are uh there's no sus suspect information or it's a non-violent offense. Uh they do a lot of registration. So, um by not filling those CSO positions, basically that that roles have to be filled by an officer. So, I guess to give the the simplest example, if an officer makes an arrest of somebody and they need to go to county jail in Martinez, um rather than having an officer drive, you know, 30 minutes there, wait 30 minutes for the intake, drive 30 minutes back, that's an hour and a half, sometimes two hours where an officer is off the street in Martinez. A cso would do that. Same if your car got stolen and you didn't know who did it, rather than waiting um you know 30 minutes to to an hour for an officer, sometimes the CSO is there to to be there immediately. So that's what they're primarily used for. Same with uh stuff uh inside the department, our registrations for our our sexual registrants. They take care of those duties rather than having a detective do it. So they are, I guess, essential and they definitely prevent an officer from coming off the street um to to do those duties. But is the impact of I I realize anything is an impact, but these positions have kind of been vacant for a while, you know, kind of fluctuating up and down. So is could the department sustain for one year having one of the positions frozen because it has been I think at least one of them essentially vacant all year.

Yeah, that there's been a bunch vacant for for quite some time. But uh just to put it in a historical perspective, we once had 25 csos when the city was much smaller. Um so I understand the situation I when I was mayor, we created the position. Yeah. And and basically to take a lot of the routine business off the sworn officer and you know and it was successful. It was incredibly successful. Yeah. No, absolutely. And then in 20 when I left in 2008 2009, it got decimated.

Yeah. And I'm sure you know a lot of complaints you hear from citizens if they are complaining about the police department, it's about the wait time. All right. Their house is broken into, cars broken into, car stolen, whatever it may be. And uh a good way to have you know service directed towards them in a timely manner is to have the cso take care of those those uh those functions there. So um I understand the situation but we definitely like to you know continue to add as many csos as possible. So but thank you.

Well I mean just there's only three of us here tonight. Um, just to say from my standpoint, my perception, I said it earlier, is anything that that has to do with public safety, I'm not going to be in favor of freezing or reducing. I'm I'm just coming out and saying that right now. So, Liberty is aware of that. I mean, when I look at because when I when we look at dispatcher, we talked about that earlier. We looked at police officers, we talked about that earlier. Um, we look at the data analysis that's part of the DOJ. I don't see anything in in related to public safety that I'd be willing to um put a freeze on considering that's our top priority, public safety.

All right. I would agree. So, going down the list, uh, police corporal will be will be reduced to two if lieutenant is approved. Right. That is the the staffing change that Captain Bner spoke about reducing the cso that was previously or the corporal over records and converting that to a lieutenant for supervision purposes. So we just were notating that because this is the current status that goes into effect July 1. Are we supportive of making that corporal into a lieutenant? Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. Is that the right matter?

I mean it's just more money. It's it costs more but um it's uh That's really the question. Can uh Captain Bner speak to that? I'm not sure what Yeah, he I think he did earlier. He explain he explained that that was something that they they wanted to do. So, so if we want to skip back past the police, unless there's other questions on the recruitment status, we can go then to the city attorney's office or police's kind of off. This this city attorney position is for the DOJ settlement.

Yes. Yes. And the only reason it says pending direction from department is just because we were waiting for the new city attorney to come on board. Obviously, she hasn't been, you know, on board very long. But, um, I know it is, you know, something important and we because it's part of the DOJ agreement, too. You know, can't eliminate that, right? So, we're good. Yes. So, I think Yeah, we're we're good with that. Okay. Um, then there's the assistant city manager. I would I would recommend freezing that for six months until we have a permit. Well, I already have three months of savings, so I can add an additional six months. That's why I would do that right now.

Yeah, we're not going to cut much. I can tell now. And when you say three months, I mean, you're talking about, you know, December 31st to hold it vacant. Yeah. Just for for time. Yeah. we've already built in three months into the budget. And I I would like to circle back on the first page to the um police officers that you know we have the 13 vacancies which I think represent a 105 number. Correct? Yes. So we're talking about right now, but we're also talking about into next year. Correct. I mean with this with this discussion we're having we're talking about freezing now and into

right the only new positions um you know like we didn't put it on here is the policy director because that's not approved until the under the alen summit that's not approved to start until July 2027. This is a list of the current vacancies and improvement status. So, so I would like to discuss what it would look like to take the our 117 number down to a number that's going to represent what we actually can for for funding purposes um that we actually think we're going to be able to hire next year.

Right. And myself um the acting city manager will be meeting with the chief and then we'll and the captain next week to get a a handle on that. So if we could come if we come up with with a realistic number, I would still like again to hold the 117 for the next fiscal year, you know, knowing that that's that's our still our goal, but set this so that we don't end up with the sal we already had the discussion about salary savings and our ability to realistically uh recruit. Yes, understood. But that 13 that 13 is to bring us to 105,

right? That's that's only to bring us to 105, but the next year's budget has 12 12 more recruits starting in December. Well, wouldn't we? Um, also the uh corporal uh that all counts in that 105. So the corporal, lieutenant, all the so everything, everyone that's sworn that will be added to that uh 105. So it's the 13 officers, the corporal, the three corporals. Um Oh, right. That's all included. That all those are included. Correct. In that 105. That's what I That's what I thought. Yes. Right.

Okay. So for city man assistant city manager we'll I'll add in an additional six months of savings the grant writer position on the next page we've um already built in six months of savings for that as I did briefly discuss when we went over that budget just because of um creating um the job spec and so forth. Then there's an administrative analyst. I would I would recommend freezing administrative analyst. Sure. And that's the one in the city manager's office. Is that the one that you're Okay.

Well, this goes into the purchasing or buyer, whatever we call, you know, it's two positions. One's purchasing officer some other classification. This could be that that position instead of saying no, but maybe later on yes. I'm just saying to keep the position agree with purchasing officer.

So for now, would you like us to freeze it until we can determine whether the the buyer or purchasing officer? Yes. Okay. Then in the city clerk's office, we have a public records coordinator. And just so you know, to this position, we don't have a job description for it yet. So it will be in the same situation as the grant writer that if we do decide to fill it, then we would have to create the job description with the unions and then six months. Yes.

I'd like to freeze it for a year. Let me I don't because it's a mess and we need help and we need to have that office function and it doesn't function and so I I I think you're wrong. I think that we need to have that position. Well, can we compromise for six months then? Okay. I'll I'll I'll build in six months of savings. Okay.

Okay. and then the um administrative um analyst and as um the acting city manager statement said that for the status there's a conditional offer that has been um accepted and so that person will be starting

yes for the uh city clerk's office uh in the human resources manager. This is the position that I mentioned that I'm going to be evaluating to see if I can make some changes um and maybe not fill it at that level, but to see how I can um make it work in a department. Okay. Uh not freeze it, but I will make some adjustments. So, it will be um I have to internally see how I can make some I will be freezing one. I just don't know if it will be that particular one in the department.

How many do you have? Just that one. Just that one. Okay. Yeah. So, looking at one model potentially underfilling with a lower paid position. Okay. So, it' be not not a manager but something something lower. So, there will be some cost savings there. Okay. Okay. Then for um recreation services, we've included this because of course of the subsidy to recreation programs. Um there is a recre recreation programs coordinator. Is this the position that was just vacated? Uh no, this is uh one that we've actually recruited for and uh we had second rounds actually today.

Uh conditional job offer offer letter. Conditional offer letter. So this just keep I think you said we have a conditional offer out there. We don't have a conditional job offer yet, but I do know that they hel they held second rounds today. So there's we have not offered the job yet.

Yeah, I wish I wish Shahad was here to give us a little more information. On the next position on the next page for recreation supervisor, it looks like that one is eligibility loss list is exhausted. position will be reposed. So possibly we look at maybe his position since they did second interviews today and maybe freeze the next one. I can follow up with him to see which one is more of a priority. We have two positions here. One which one priority. Yeah. One said second interview, the other one's going to be reposted. So, so we would we would freeze one of them, one of the two depending on what depending on what he says. What he says

from what I do understand um he has mentioned in the past that uh he does not have a recreation supervisor to oversee the water park right now. I mean, one of their biggest activities is the summer aquatics, right? And that's where we hire all the temporary student workers and the instructors. And it's a very it's a huge operation. Yes. So I I would hope that we would have a supervisor supervising all that. Well, but it looks like they have to repost it. I mean, so I mean I guess we if we leave it open, they still have to repost it. And I don't know where we'll be with being able to hire someone in that window of time.

That's a good question. Well, if if um after the conversation that the um acting city manager has is decided that the supervisor is the most important, of course, we would build in a few months of vacancy savings for that to get posted and filled. So, you know, you would not only have the savings from the position, uh if the coordinator is frozen of 162, you know, you'd probably have another 50,000 in savings for, you know, till the supervisor's bill. I mean for the recreation programs coordinator that this role supports all city events, community programs, sports programs, currently sports supervisor oversees the water park, community programs and sports program along with all staff assigned to each program area.

Sounds important. Sounds pretty essential. Yeah. Well, I'm sure both programs both are essential. Maybe speak with I'll follow up with him to see what Okay. Um, public works. Um, I don't know why this says FTE frozen. That's not frozen. This is an open position. How long has it been vacant?

Well, this is the one that's going over to community development. No, this one's in stays in public works. Oh, stays in public capital division in public works. I think I thought there was people in background or interviews had been done. There was one person there was um we hired an assistant city engineer by the name of Robert Pizaro. So that might be what we're seeing as frozen. No, this is not that not Robert's position. Robert is charged to water and sewer. There's a vacancy in this division. Then there is then there is an open position that we need to advertise for. Do we have to have it?

Yes. Currently, I have a technician, a junior engineer, an assistant engineer. It'd be nice to have somebody within the capital department that has engineering experience, possibly even an engineering license. It would be nice to have this person. Um, we talk about all the capital improvements that we need to do in the backlog of everything. Without staff, that doesn't get done. Can this position be charged to the capital improvement fund for all the projects they work on? That's the that's the goal. We we try to be as much billable we can just like a consultant would as we build projects. So, as much as there's parent funds for for as many people as we can, we try to supplement that by having them bill up against the projects they're designing or working on.

Well, if it needs to be reposted, um we can build in vacancy savings at least like what would what do you believe would be a good estimate for vacancy savings to build in? Oh, at this point we go three to six months, something like that. That's fine. Six months. Sure. Okay. All right. Oh, while you're up here, the other one that I see is it says operations supervisor and it says pending direction from department.

So, um that would be uh we have three operational supervisors. Um this supervisor position was overseeing the marina and parks. Um that person is no longer there. We have somebody acting in that position. So, currently it is vacant uh with an acting person in there. Uh would be very beneficial for public works to have this. Um the marina again something we need to have a lot of attention on. Uh currently it's being looked after as an acting position as along with parks. So um in terms of things that are important to the city, the marina parks, these are things that uh hopefully we can keep a supervisor position open. It says 28. So that's a part-time position. No, no, no. It just it's partially charged to other funds.

Oh, it's partially charged. Oh, I see. Okay. So, it's point it's it's 0 28 to the general fund or Yeah, it's 028 to the general fund which is approximately $67,000. Okay.

Want to keep that? Yeah. I mean, um, do we know when that position's going to post then? That this literally just became vacant like a couple weeks ago, too. So, we're on hold right now. I know that we're going to take a look at it. Um hopefully we'll be able to get it out fairly soon, but like I say, if we have it on hold for whatever a little bit, that's fine. It's going to take us a little bit to get things in up in line and get the position recruited for and get somebody on board. So I can build in three three months of vacancy. Probably three to four. Okay. I'll do four months of vacancy. The next one is three street maintenance workers one and two and there's three positions posting closed. Yes. Offer.

Yes. So it looks like for all three looks like they're all in the process. So one will be starting soon. They've already gone through the Yes. The other one was extended a conditional job offer and uh and one is in the background process. So all those three are in the process. All right. So we'll leave them leave them on now. Assistant city engineer. Uh yes, this is in the uh community economic development department

and there is two months of vacancy savings um built in because the recruitment is posted.

I would I would say to freeze this. Sorry, Scott. I'll concur with that. And the next one here is the senior economic development program manager. Uh so this recruitment actually we posted we went through the whole process and uh uh actually uh this one we have a second round scheduled um for believe it's tomorrow. Um and then the other economic development program manager that when we posted we had provided a conditional job offer and it was turned down.

Well, I would I would say freeze one of them. Well, I would disagree. If the number one priority is economic development, then we need to have a staff that does economic development. And if you don't have the manager and some assistance, then it's very hollow when we tell the public economic development is so important when we don't staff it. Well, we need to hire a director, right? That's the manager. Okay. We still need to hire the community economic development director. Thank you. Did you potentially maybe for the economic development program manager just want to pause it for six months until we get it, you know, on the on the one position we can at least recognize six months of savings until

six months. Okay. That was on which one? The manager on the the regular one. Yeah. Not the senior. Okay. This administrative analyst is um is for economic development as well. And this position is actually uh we've gone through second rounds and now it's just a matter of deciding if we want to provide a conditional job offer. Do we have good candidates for this position? We did.

We did. And then they would be working for the acting director until we have somebody that's Yes. until someone until we hire whether if we hire a senior economic development manager then they will work for them. Um if not the director

forward with it. It's it's a needed position. It's already closed on second round. already got your second round of some good candidates. Okay, I would say keep it.

And we have the code enforcement manager. Yeah, I think that's an important position to to fill with a court of being closed. Yes. So this one we actually already have a person uh a qualified person that we could uh we were just waiting for some the reason why some of the changes were brought to for the classification.

Next is the code enforcement officer two vacancies. So, there are seven code enforcement officer positions filled. Just for context, I would delete one because we're going to bring a new manager on that individual be able to after six months or so make an evaluation. So, I would suggest we freeze one. I

agree. I agree. Okay. And the next one we have is the animal services manager. Um I understand this is one that you felt that was a priority, right? Yeah. But it sounds like we've been going without it. What's What is the reason why we haven't been able to find someone? Didn't they say it's been three years? I think you might need to be in close session for that answer.

Oh, okay. um because it seems to me that's a priority position. You know, I think we have to hire that position first. I think the other two positions are important too, but I think the priority should be to get an animal services manager in place and then build that program. What are your thoughts? I agree. I I I mean I I think it's it's horrible that three this has been a man a threeyear vacancy. Yeah. Same here. But there may be other reasons, you know, for for that discussion.

Um, so I I I do think it's a priority. It's long overdue and I think we need to fill it. Hopefully we'll be successful with the animal control. Let's see. So there's the manager and then there's the officer. We have two postings closed. I I would freeze one of those positions. I agree with that. Yes.

Next one was a technician. Yes. And actually I would keep the technician. We close the officer. I mean you need somebody in house. That's the in-house person, right?

And salary. Yes. Salar is less. Okay, that concludes our list of the general fund positions. So, um I will work on getting these figures and when we the 20 May 26 will be the next budget study session prior to the city council meeting. So, I'll bring the um savings we've concluded from what we've built in for this discussion and the discussion on the other funds. As I stated before, I'll be meeting with the police department and the acting city manager to tighten up the police numbers and get a realistic number for fiscal year 27 that we can report out to council that, you know, it's the reality is this is what we're funding, what we think we can get to, you know, by fiscal year end. So, um, we'll dial down in that over the next week, um, and bring all that back and we'll also, you know, all the follow-up questions that we h um, have, you know, we'll attempt to get answers for those and bring those back on the 26th as well. So in prior budget discussions I mean we need to reduce costs by millions of dollars. Um, one of the things that we have suggested is some of the consultant services contracts, the ones that are scheduled to terminate, I think there two or three on June 30th, those will terminate, you know, I'm assuming. And then there's one that I think goes a couple months later. I think October if I Yeah, October. And that will terminate. Correct.

Yes. And so we should be saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. that's already built into the 26 27 numbers that you see and that's why for the general fund we provided the list of contracts and you could see how a lot of the numbers drop down so I think that was like about 2 million I forget I mean and so you know so one other area is overtime particularly the police department um is and public works I mean I would assume those are the two departments that have a lot of overtime

yeah but the the largest I will tell you unfortunately is the police department. But another thing to slightly defend their overtime is if they're un under the 105 number, they of course incur overtime because of the staff shortages. I know they really did make a concerted effort over the last couple years with schedule changes and training day changes to reduce overtime as much as possible and then of course if a critical incident happens that occurs unanticipated overtime as well. Um but we'll definitely evaluate that in our discussion next week with that about staffing. Um and a lot of the public works overtime actually ends up happening in the water other funds other than the general fund itself. So um but yes we

and you could provide you know particularly with the overtime issue just like maybe two years and where we're at in the process just so that we're aware. So we're looking at consultant services agreement. We're looking at overtime. Uh we've held some positions. I mean, where else are we, you know, did we did we decide on the auto replacement fund? Did we make that? I think not. Yeah, we haven't. I don't

No, it's in the budget. Uh, you know, and I put in the staff report, you know, I I included in there because in in my recommendation, there's no way we can afford to add it back in when it's essentially an ancillary. I know we're going to be exploring the, you know, what we're required to provide next year. We want to dig a little bit deeper. we've talked about and that's not a required service to set aside money for vehicle replacement.

You know, Mer, I don't disagree with you. The problem is by doing that, future expenditures for for vehicles, equipment, and things of that are just going to get higher as as we move forward, particularly if we have tariffs on everything. And so, you know, that that's a concern. So, I'm not sure it's a all or nothing, you know, situation because by I think what is it 1.2 million?

Um, it's 1.7 that we have uh taken out of the fiscal year 2627 budget. Um, you know, but there is a little over $8 million in the vehicle replacement fund. So, it can absorb that for some, you know, it can afford to absorb that for one year not being set aside. I know it's not ideal but if if if it's one year, you know, because we began to lose purchasing power, right? And absolutely. And then the 2728, you know, I notated that that's added back in in the projections for 272. I just Yeah, you you live with these. We just read them, you know, occasionally. So, okay. Yeah. So, that's that's why I want to bring it up just for clarification.

I mean, where where else I mean, you know, we we're talking about millions that we need to cut literally. we've been, you know, we we are depleting the rate stabilization fund. Yeah. And so sooner or later, even though, you know, it basically comes down to personnel, you know, those are our largest expenditures. And you know, I I'm you know, I may not be here when when the crash happens and you know, that future city council will have to make horrible horrible cuts to try to to balance the budget and that's what concerns me.

Well, I think I think the one question that I believe Mayor Bernol asked and I don't know what that term actually means, but what's a baseline? I mean, prior to COVID, what what did our staffing and budget look like? And then, of course, we had the rescue funds, ARPA, and a I think the school district's going through the same crisis. In fact, they're I think they're dealing with that tonight. One-time money that created a number of positions and programs

and then after that sunsets, what can you sustain? What can you keep going? So I think the hard question has to be what is the operational baseline to provide public safety, streets, public works. Where is that at? And then look at what we can afford. Well, the other thing CO started in 2020. This is 2026, right?

And so the demands on public services are greater and greater and every department head will defend every position requested and then some. And so that's but you get you're I'm going to tell you in 2027, you know, maybe 2028 there's going to be a crash. The money just isn't going to be there. And you know, I think when we started this out, you know, last year, our highest priority was to retain our employees, keep them working. And the other part of it, even though it was an option, let's reduce their their work week by eight weeks and then I think 16. I mean, there are several options and we said no, you know, let's keep everybody fully employed and whoever is employed employed, you know, but those, you know, those options are quickly going going away for the future. And I can tell you on December 10th when we were in 2024 sworn into office, it was terrible to be faced with a $54 million deficit. But frankly, we're some we've done some things, but we're setting oursel up again to have that same type of occurrence, maybe even worse, coming in the future. And so part of me feels a responsibility not to pass that on to the future. But I mean every position that's requested, you know, makes sense. Oh my god, we need that. We can't we can't do without it. But frankly, that is the burden before us because personnel are is our greatest cost.

Yeah. And I think, you know, as part of that, like I said, we start early next year with the what's the minimum baselines? we have time August you talked about right because I think it's great you know we don't have time to do that by June 30th and so and then also I think as part of that is I know you know we had kind of said freeze all vacant positions but but as positions do become vacant other than the you know police department as was mentioned then it's a discussion and even a round table discussion with council do we maintain this as vacant you know so

yeah I would I would I would request that as as positions become vacant that they're frozen until it's an an affirmative um approval by council to reauorize. I think that's I I I think that's a good way to move forward. That's that's a way we're going to be able to address it on a real time basis.

So, I think that's important. The other thing that I would like to see as part of this baseline discussion is parks and wreck and all of their programs and what they cost and what they serve and public safety and community resources and what their programs cost and what they serve. I want it because I want to see what both of those programs do apart from each other and then what they're serving, what they're costing, who they're serving, and so that we can make sure that um both of those are what we can um what we can all support and afford to pay for.

All right. We've done a lot of heavy lifting from when we started with $54 million deficit. We're still working that down to the best of our ability. We still have a lot more work to do. But I I do think that we have moved strides ahead from where we started. I mean, tonight it went well because they're not an audience, but every program that the city has has has an advocacy. Absolutely.

And you know, are near and dear. I mean, you know, we now are getting I 15 20 advocates for animal services and that's going to grow as an example. And that's just one example. And the commonality is city of Antioch is not spending enough money on animal services. How dare you? You know, and and that will be true for every other program that we talk about. But sooner or later, you know, you don't want to go into receiverhip. you know, we don't, you know, we have to find a way to to build up revenue and that's why sales of property tax. We have to

Yeah. I mean, economic development to me is absolutely the number one. You know, I think I think frankly, you know, the city has been remissed not having a grant writer who's knowledgeable and experienced and can helpful help us. And and I I you know the collective intelligence rests with all of our employees. They're there. They're working and they they are the ones who really need to step forward and help us with recommendations on what we should or should not do. You know, we're elected, we come, but we're not experts. We we we don't you know, our experience is very limited. But somehow someway I believe that we need to work with our our own employees the sense of it is a team and you all need to help us out on how to reduce these costs today and in the future. And from from a very selfish perspective if you can't help us the likelihood in two to three years you may lose your job. So, I mean, I I don't mean to be threatening at all, but th that's what we're dealing with. And in the past, I would say it was ignored, you know, and unfortunately, you know, we're here. We we we have a little bit of time that that we need to address, but we need to make sign significant changes. So, I I I feel sad in some respects, but, you know, I'd love to get to zero,

you know, but out there. So, the the other thing I'd like to look at is the um the travel and the training. I know we we're flying all over the country right now and I know it's expensive to do in hotels and stuff. So, I'd like to make sure that the travel and training is only what's mandatory and that we're not um doing anything that's um excessive.

It should be in the policy statement. You know, I mean, I think it's crazy that a commission since five or six people. I I I'm sorry. I just think that's crazy, you know, and and I think we do need to re I think the mayor is right. We do need to review it, but and I think that's right. Is being it's being responsible. It's being prudent, but it's not going to generate millions of dollars, but it's it it helps. Every little bit helps.

Yeah. I think I think it's a matter of being in that space where people are very conscientious of every dollar that they're spending so that and that everybody does it so it's not one department's doing something and the others are doing something different. It needs to be consistently that's that whole everybody working together to to do this but you know we might pick up $100,000 on that line item and I think incrementally as we start doing that we'll see some we'll see some snowballing. So this is this is really hard and as mayor prom said we didn't make as much progress as I think we all hoped we would have but I think we made some right director 100% and then you know adding in the revenue projections from the user fee study the 1.8 8 million. That's going to take a big chunk out of that, you know.

I think I mean, if if we we were at 6.5 million, I think that So, I think if we could, you know, end up at 2 million, 3 million, you know, plus the five, I think we'd be making some good progress. I don't know. I think that's a lot more than what we've discussed here, but we'll see. We'll bring all the we'll bring the latest numbers to you on the 26. This year is tough. Next year is going to be I mean next year it to me is the absolute critical year because we're not going to be able to depend on the rate stabilization fund. We're just not and you know when that hits y it's it's going to be brutal. So I think that we're all trying to avoid it. We're trying to be good stewards to the public. Um

that's that's the challenge we have. Yeah. I think the thing I just like to remind us all of is the fact that we started with a $54 million deficit and now it's down to 13 down to 28 million. So, it's been cut in half basically, which is great. And I think to the extent that we can take the two-year down to 20 million or something like that. I mean, it's it's going to take time, but we're we're making some good progress. Yeah. I mean, the only reason why it's not as devastating is because we had the rate stabilization, right? We have we have reserves. we but they're they're going to be going very fast. But to your point um Don about the the fee study that was done or the the user fee portion of it adding one point was it 1.7 1.8 8 million. It's like 1.79,

right? So that that was huge. That was done this year, which is great. And then we also are development impact fees that as we generate if those rates fees go up and we can use those for projects we were using for general fund before. I think there's just ways we'll incrementally get us get ourselves in a place where we're in um better position moving forward. Not not leaking money like I think we have been. No, I I I agree with that. You know, once those fees are implemented, this chamber will be filled with people screaming at us for doing that.

And so, I mean, there's no, you know, there's no upside. And so, it's like when I was the Contracasta water district director dealing with how to improve our water system, particularly with saltwater intrusion, we built the Los Vicaris Reservoir. And the night I made the motion at CCWD to go forward, I said, you know, we have to increase our water rates, raw water, which Antioch is a customer, and treated water in central by 3 to 400%. And it next election for any one of us will probably be the last time we serve. And you know, and there was some reality to that. So it's it's it is a reality you know and I you know when you do when you do these responsible things politically it has consequences.

Sure. You'll do for popularity. No. No. But I mean that that that's what we I mean I I saw every year Don's you know report to the city council for years and there could have been preventive action and there wasn't and that was unfortunate and we are here to clean it up but that's that's that's why we got why we ran to clean it up and we are listening to you. We are listening. We're not ignoring you. Hear you loud and clear. So thank you.

Thank you. And thank you. This has been uh for anybody who hasn't been watching, it's a four and a half hour meeting. So, thank you everybody that's been a part of this and um but it's been good. We've been able to take our time and and I think we've made some good progress today.

Yeah, I appreciate the time. I you know, I was worried it getting cut short because, you know, we've had other things that have overrun so it's been cut short. So, I really feel like this has truly been one of the most productive meetings so far and we're finally almost to the end point of budget adoption. not end point of ending this budget but of culminating to getting this adopted next month. So I I truly appreciate the guidance from from council. I feel like you know this is the most you know guidance we've gotten and direction to help us you know chisel away at this. So and then I think I think Don and Anna just moving forward this is going to help propel us into August next year and we'll just start we'll just keep working on this as we're you know continue to build the organization.

Yes. All right. Uh, no public comment I don't think from anybody before we leave. We have no public comments. Captain Bner, do you want to say anything? Do you want to So, uh, I will, uh, adjourn this meeting at 8:34 p.m. Meeting is adjourned at 8:34 p.m. Well, I I don't want to second my own things anymore.