City Council - Special Meeting

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I'm sure thanks sir.

Thank you.

Sorry can you get one more yeah, right we're back in session.

From our closed session, City Attorney, do we have any reportable action from closed session today?

There is no reportable action, Mr. Mayor.

With that, we are going to adjourn our closed session and our special meeting and come back in four minutes after a quick break to do our budget meeting. Okay.

We are back in session for our

4 o'clock special meeting. This is our budget meeting. It's an open session in the Selma City Council Chambers, 1710 Tucker Street, Selma, California, 93662. And Carretera Transpeninsular Kilometer 4.1, El Tazal 23454, Cabo San Lucas, Baja, California, Sur, Mexico. The teleconference phone number is 301-715-8592. The webinar ID is 891-6864-5005. When on the phone, if you wish to address the council during the public comment part of the agenda, press star nine to raise your hand and we will select you from the meeting queue. Press star six to unmute and mute yourself. Notice to meeting attendees, members of the audience shall not engage in disorderly or boisterous conduct, including the utterance of threatening or abusive language or other acts which disturb, disrupt, or impede, or otherwise render the orderly conduct of a city council meeting infeasible. Would you call the roll, please?

Council Member Avalos?

Here.

Council Member Osegarra?

Here.

Council Member Trujillo?

Here. Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Guerrero?

Here.

Mayor Robertson here.

Okay. It is a special meeting. So we won't be doing the pledge potential conflicts of interest. Any council member who has a potential conflict of interest may now identify the item and recuse themselves from discussing and voting on the matter. Agenda changes or deletions to better accommodate members of the public or inconvenience in the order of presentation. Items on the agenda may not be presented or acted on in the order listed. Additions to the agenda may be added only pursuant to California Government Code Section 549.54.2B. To the attorney, do we have any such changes or deletions at this time?

We do not, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Moving on to oral communications at this time. Any member of the public may address the city council regarding any item on the regular meeting agenda over which the council has jurisdiction. No action or discussion will be taken on any item not on the agenda. Issues raised will be referred to the city manager for review. Members of the public are asked to limit their remarks to three minutes. Do we have any oral communications at this time? Anyone online or on the phone with communications?

Mayor, I see no hands raised.

Thank you. Moving on to our one and only regular business item, which is a review of the proposed budget. Report, please.

Thank you, Mayor Robertson and council members. The item before you is our proposed 26-27 budget. You all do have copies of our power slides in front of you. We'll get our power slide going.

Is the one in front of us the same as the one in our packet?

There was just two changes on two charts on page five and six, not including the 22, 23 numbers. It now has the 24, 25. Okay. So if we go ahead and continue here, just to bring out, we did have a very lean budget this year and we were structurally in a deficit. we had to use some one-time funding to balance their budget. So some overall budget assumptions, we had all the department heads do an analytical review of their budget and have them all go back to a base budget, meaning that they had to go all to base it for the operations and staffing levels. And then every year going forward, we're going to reset our budget, making this continuance every year so we can, so we start at a base budget. Okay. Okay, so one time, overall budget assumptions. Again, we return to a base budget, and we use one-time funding to balance a budget from internal service fund reserves, as well as pension obligation bond debt allocation, and lastly, funding reserves from the PARS 115 trust fund. I also want to share that going forward, our future budget assumptions for 2720 and beyond And to be aware that the loss of the Measure C money is approximately $1.4 million, as well as continued ongoing negotiated salary increases and increased costs for pension liability. There is a new bill coming forward that's going to restructure, alter pension structure. So that might cause some increases there in pension liability and, of course, increase health care. So on this slide is, we had this last year, just wanted to give an overall where we are at 25, 26 general fund. It does show a deficit of 1.1 million due to the purchase of Schaefer Park Moscow Lights and the downtown expenses. So our ending fund balance was at 15.9 million with these deficit brought it down to 14. Our current proposed 2627, we do have a surplus of $346 of this. Any additions that we do add to the budget, we'll bring it down to a deficit. In the bottom, you'll see that we have an estimate fund balance of 14.9 million. Of that, we set aside 20% reserves. So the GF way requires 17% for operating expenses. So we do 15% of our expenses at 3.2 million and then a designated emergency of 5%, which is 1 million total 4.2. Again, we have sufficient monies in reserves to cover for any catastrophic events. And this is all listed on page 10 of your fund sources. Okay, so this slide here is all funds expenditures on page 12 of your budget book. This just indicates that we have a total budget of 6.6 million. Of that, general fund is the largest at 33%. As you know, general fund covers all core services such as police, fire, parks, rec, admin, finance. The second largest is our special revenue, which is restricted and committed for a specific purpose. That one's at 31%, followed by our enterprise fund, which is treated like a business, 17.23%, followed by internal service at 11%. So the internal services are charges assessed internally by our city departments for operation for maintenance and replacement, and the remaining capital and debt service under Any questions on expenditures?

Just the, you know, you're looking at the internal services a lot more that it's been expensed than it was in 22, 23. And then the enterprise funds a lot higher and the special revenue was significantly higher from 22, 23 and 23, 24. Can you just touch on those?

So the reason we have higher internal service funds, as we mentioned, we did have to use some internal service to balance our budget. That being said, we use funding from the facility and buildings. So our GFOA requires us to do a true-up every year for any of our internal service funds, and we're finally doing it this year, which helped us balance our budget. So we're truing up any internal services that we charge each department.

How about the special revenue?

So special revenue.

It's going from 13 to 20.

15 to 20. I'll go back and look at that while I go through that, and then I can answer those questions.

Sounds good. And then the capital projects, too. There's a big discrepancy there, too.

So the capital is listed on your budget book towards the end, and I'll go over that towards the end on page 37. All right.

And then capital typically fluctuates over years depending on what projects are in the pipeline, either for funding or construction. Right.

I mean, the Musco Lights were part of a big capital project this year, so I can't see why that expense would be higher.

Any other questions? So the next slide is our general fund reserves by type, is a detail listed on page 19 of your budget book. Also the graph on page 13. So our proposed revenues is 21.3 million. Of this, the highest one is our sales and use tax, the Bradley 1% tax, sitting at 41.41%. And it's followed by the highest, second highest is our VLF at 13.28%. Then we have our property taxes at 11%, followed by the remaining under, well, 10% for the other sources, which is part of the transfers ends and the rest under 10%, which we have the TOT, the license permits, charges for service and franchise and grants and reimbursements. Any questions on revenues?

I'm just wondering, where's the 2223 year for the revenues?

Okay, so those are the charts that we we replace for you on the power slide. However, you'll see it on your is listed on your budget book on page 14. And page 13. So we dropped off the 2223 and incorporated the 2324 and added the 2425 on your power slides.

Um, so this, these are the power slides, right? This is what we're looking at. Yes.

On page five, page five.

And then where do I look for 22, 23, page 14.

It wasn't your original pliers power slide. And we, we removed the 22, 23 and added the 23, 24 and 24, 25, but it's listed on your budget book on page 14.

Mayor, that would be in your council packet.

I'm looking at it, yep, but it's not. On page 13, it's not. I'm looking at general fund revenues in my packet, and 2223 isn't listed. And page 13 is revenues, and page 14 is expenditures.

Correct. Okay, I apologize. So the all funds chart does list the 2223 on page 12, as well as expenditures on page 14.

Yeah, we're missing the 2223 for the revenues. Can you get us that? Email it to Council on the 22-23 for revenues, and then I'm looking at the expenditures. You put the 24-25 in, so we're good on that. What else? 22-23. I think we're just missing the 22-23 on revenues, the expenditures. Hold on. expenditures. You're saying you put it in expenditures by type? No, I don't see it there either.

She put it, she revised it. I revised the PAR slide to not include the 22-23. I wanted to mirror the budget detail book.

Got it.

And therefore, it just includes the 23-24, 24-25, up through 26-27. Can you get us the 22-23 for the revenues? Thank you. Our next slide is our general fund expenditures by division. This is located on page 14 on your budget book and also detailed by division with narratives starting on page 25. So we use the same methodology as last year. We have the narratives with the objectives and accomplishments. We are trying to get the GOFA budget award this year. So we wanted to have the same structure. So starting on the expenditures, the highest one is our police at 36.22%, followed by a fire at 2259. And then that is also followed by administrative services at 10%. And then you have our development services, community services at 7%, followed by public works and finance at 5%. Again, this is just a breakdown of the expenditures by division. Our next slide is our personnel section. Again, we incorporated this last year in our budget book. It just gives a true picture of our personnel. Our personnel includes salaries, overtime, taxes, insurance, CalPERS, vacation payouts, and so forth, also including ongoing MOU agreements. Of the whole chart, personnel does fall 66%, followed with the M&O transfers in Capital Ali. Again, this is just a personnel section to give you an idea where we are, the 66% of personnel. Any questions on this slide?

Maggie, do we know how many employees increased from last year to this year?

I can't find that for you. I think it was 162 last year, but I can get that for you. All right, our next slide, this is just department budget proposals. It starts on page 25 of your budget book. And the next slide please is our administration. So administration consists of city council, city attorney and city manager. There's pretty much no changes. If you look at the detail on page 26 for the city council, really no changes there. There was a really slight increase in health benefits for the personnel and the adopted does reflect 10,000, which is the tables and chairs that we're using right now. but no capital for proposed for 26, 27. There is a 25% increase on the city attorney, which is located on page 28 of your budget book. And then going down to city manager on page 31, the only changes we had in city manager is, as you can see a prior years, we now have the public information officer as well as executive assistant. And that was causing the 10% increase on the city manager.

And then the city attorney, the 25%, is that due to anticipated litigation? I think I got an email that it's due to prior usage and what it developed last year, but is that something that's expected to be $250 instead of $200?

Yeah, so what we do is we try to look at prior year history as well when we're projecting out. So that way we can have a conservative approach when we're doing the budget. In previous years, you see 261, 241, so on, stuff like that. And then based upon receipts that we've received this year, we estimate that the 250 is probably where we'll hit next year as well.

So 250 is projected for this coming year, and 250 will probably be what we have in the adopted budget for last year. Is that correct? Yes. Okay.

The next slide is our... Oh, there you go. Okay, so our city clerk, it's really no changes on here. We did add 45,000 for the much needed agenda software, which will be coming out our data processing internal service funds. Other than that, there's no changes for the city clerk. Just continue training. The administrative services division, starting with HR, it's on page 32. There is a slight decrease of 36% in personnel. This is due to the transition of the payroll into finance. It's reflective of their going down to insurance and the risk and health. There is a slight increase on those of 5%, 12%. And the data processing, which is on page 174, does show a decrease in personnel that has been shifted down to professional services. And we do have the 60,000 capital outlay, which incorporates the agenda software of 45,000.

Under the data processing, does this number include a replacement for the employee who is doing the data processing on-site for the city, or is there an anticipated change in how that will be taken care of by the city this year?

Yeah, we're looking at moving towards a contract service model. Currently, we use data path for that. But we will be going out for an RFQ for firms that are interested in that. What's the timeline for that RFQ? I'll defer to the deputy city manager.

I have the basis of the RFQ already written. I'm just looking to add some additional language into it and then it'll be released. I'm hoping to have it out in the next couple of weeks. Doing some of the city clerk work has slowed me down a little bit on some of those items. And so I'd like to have it out for probably at least 45 days for comments. I do have four or five firms I've been in contact with. So we do have some viable consultants out there that are taking a look at it. So I'm confident we'll be able to use contract services for that. Thank you.

I have a question. On the agenda software, I mean, what is that going to do? Because, I mean, before, we never had to get agenda software. I mean, what is that? $45,000 is a lot of money for...

The $45,000 is a rough estimate that was done by our city clerk yesterday. And that was looking around what some agencies – that's not what the cost may be. It could be below that. It could be over – we're not sure yet until we go out for an RFQ on that. But essentially the way that we run – Agendas right now is all through Word and Teams, which can make it quite cumbersome at times when we are trying to make sure that everything is being checked by the appropriate departments and that we're putting the agenda together so that way we can get it out in a timely manner. And then that way it can continue to track, you know, agenda action items, so on and so forth. It bundles it all together into one to make it a more efficient process as we move forward with budgets that get larger, more complex as we continue to move on.

I mean, something we hear about every year is, you know, our budget software is so much better this year than it was last year. And it does seem like it's improving. This is the easiest budget to read we've ever had. But at the same time, you know, our agendas, they're not easy to read, you know? So, I mean, it would be, and we have to, you know, come in, pick up our agendas. They're ready sometimes, like right under the wire for the 72 hours. Since we changed the meetings to Tuesday, that makes it a little easier to do, but it just seems like 45,000 is, as the council member said, it's kind of a big nut for agenda preparation software. Will that go out to bid too? Yes. Okay. So it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to cost $45,000. It could be more, he said.

It could be more.

Or less. It could be more. It could be less. It was a placeholder number, and that was the best number that we had at the time. And it'll come to council.

And the only concern, the reason I'm building up concern is because before, the previous city clerk never asked for... software and everything was always on time. So that's why the reason I'm questioning it. I mean, right now, budget is not, you know, like, hey, you know, let's burn money because we don't have money to burn. So that's the only reason I was bringing it up.

Yeah, I mean, I just I agree with the trade off analysis. I think I think agenda software is not as important as as payroll, you know, for people who who provide vital services and to our residents in our city. And I think you've gone through that analysis for several weeks. I've seen staff, city manager, deputy city manager, finance director really work hard on this for the last, gosh, month and a half, two months. So thank you for that. But I think from a council level where we establish direction, I think agent agenda software is not nearly as important as some of the other services the city provides. Another question, insurance and health benefits. Are we gonna be in a position to go back with PERS to put that to a vote? Is that coming down to what, two years from now, three years from now?

In three more years, you'll be qualified to take a look at that. We are trending about five to 600,000 below the PERS rate though. And so being self-insured. So it'll be an item that once we are eligible, we'll bring it back for council consideration.

I think it's great with the savings. There isn't just as much coverage that I've seen with the self-insured plan, like the deductibles. It's a different structure. I don't know if it's as... as good for the employees as the other one was. And with that 500, 600,000 savings, I just want to make sure that we're giving them something comparable to what we had before.

The only difference because we set the deductibles. And so the city, you know, we could do zero deductible. We could do those because being self-insured, you actually get to do the, you get to decide what you want to pay basically. And so So that's up to the city how they want the deductibles. The only real difference is that we do not have the ability to use Kaiser. And so, and I know that there are, you know, numerous employees that would like to see Kaiser coverage.

Kaiser's would only be available for PERS. It wouldn't be available for any other health insurer.

They do not allow PERS. self-insured plans to utilize them and so as long as we're self-insured we're not able to contract with them with Kaiser correct but with CalPERS you had that option is that correct right Kaiser is one of the options with CalPERS and we're looking at what two or three years before that comes three more years before we're eligible that's what you said okay thank you

So lastly, on this page, I do want to bring out that we added the $200,000 for the city hall remodel, which is coming out of impact fees facilities. So the next slide is our finance division. Pretty much the same here. It does show a 31% increase. That is also due to the restructuring of the payroll division from HR to finance. Other than that, that's on page 36 of your budget book. Going on to the police department.

I'll just go back quickly to the finance. You know, 22-23, we saw these huge numbers, and we saw that it went way down the next year, and there's just such a discrepancy. Director, do you think there's a need for a forensic audit of the 22-23 year to see where those numbers went? Because they're just gigantic compared to, you know, when we had that email exchange about, why were the numbers so much larger and you weren't here then city manager wasn't here then but they really are a lot higher in terms of and where they went the next year so just want to put that in your um thought stream of perhaps a forensic audit for the 22 23 fiscal year of where that money went and how those expenditures were made thank you

So going on to the police department on the next slide, please. There you go. Okay, so here on the police division, there was some police position restructure, adding code enforcement and dispatch here. If you look at your police administration, it does show a slight increase in personnel, 6%. That is located on page 40 of your budget book. And then going on to our police field operations, it does show an increase. You'll see some changes from the position percentage allocation or reallocation. You'll see that there's increases in general fund and then decreases in the Measure S. So there's some movement of positions there. I spoke to police chief earlier, and this happened prior, so they're restructuring the positions. and then going down to police support again to show an increase with the personnel due to that change in positions to measure S. Any questions on police?

It's probably a good time to open it up to the public. We haven't called for public comment. Would you mind, Director? We just called public. Anybody have any questions so far? Anybody online or on the phone with a question? Anybody with any questions?

1057 Mill Street, and I think, I know this is a lot of work and there's a lot of new people here, but at the time when us citizens were here for all those years and they didn't have a financial director, it's very clear and appropriate that you, new council, you know, protect yourselves. In my opinion, when you don't have a financial director for so many years and you want to go back and look at some of the years, absolutely, a first senate is absolutely something you guys should absolutely consider. An audit for the year doesn't look for that. But when you come in and you tell them where to focus, that's where they focus. And they will be able to determine exactly where a lot of these transfers or a lot of the monies were in place. I think that would be appropriate. I'm very familiar with what an audit does, and they don't look for the focus of what you're going to tell them to focus to. Thank you.

Anybody on the phone or online? I see no hands raised at this time.

Council Member Trujillo, have any questions? Council Member Trujillo, I want to ensure that we can hear you.

No, I do not have a question. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you, sir.

Okay, so on this slide here again, as mentioned earlier, there was a restructuring so now that we have code enforcing dispatch you see there's no activity in prior years slide this one here yeah and so it just shows us a slight increase on both the code enforcement and dispatch. Going on to the next slide is our Measure S portion of the police department. Just want to highlight that there was a slight increase on the police administration. As you see, there is a decrease that went to the general fund. We do have capital outlay, as you can see, $142,000, which incorporates the the MDT patrol cars, the tasers, and the cameras. And then you have our desk service, which is our vehicle police, five new police vehicles for the lease. And then going down to police support, same thing there. We do have 45,000 for the cameras, the LPR cameras flock, as well as police vehicles for 60,000 for desk service. Other than that, that's all the changes in the measure S.

So I've been reading those reports and a lot of the PD reports on the Friday notes are we found somebody on probation when they were coming into our town, found a gun. Chief Alcarez, how have those flock cameras been, the licensed play readers? Have they been a game changer or helpful or how would you characterize the addition of flock cameras to the city?

I honestly feel they've been an enormous help to us, especially as we build out some of these bigger investigations that require, they're not as quick to solve. They take a little bit longer, but they get us data that we can use to kind of build a bigger picture on some or more career criminals investigations. So we're extremely pleased with them. We'd love to expand on that. However, we do understand the fiscal restraints, but yeah.

I think with that kind of return, probably be something really good to look at in the future to expand those just because they've been so effective.

Absolutely. And that technology would tie in well with the drone flight response program as well, Mr. Mayor. My little plug there. Good one.

Thank you.

I'm going to go to the fire department. So this starts on page 51 of your budget book. So looking at the next slide, we have the, again, we have some position reallocation changes for the fire administration. There is an increase of personnel there, no capital outlay. And then if you go down to the fire operations, as you can see, there is an increase there as well. Again, those are the changes that we made for the reallocation of positions. And then going down to fire prevention, there's no changes there as well and no capital outlay. We do have some improvements in Station 2 that's coming out of the fire impact fees. It's for the restroom remodels of $75,000 and the parking lot expansion of $30,000. Again, that's coming out of fire impact fees. The next slide, please. We have the... ambulance service side of it. Again, we did have some position restructure there. No changes for the fire administration, a slight decrease, but there is an increase in ambulance. If you look at the fire operations, it's due to the reallocations. We moved some funding back to general fund, back to 50-50 split. And then going down to ambulance, It does show an increase. This is due to the six new positions. We have three single-role paramedics added, as well as three additional single-role EMTs, increasing the wages and personnel, as well as if you look at your capital outlay of $640,000, which incorporates two new ambulances. And then our desk service is for our cardiac monitor lease purchase. Any questions on ambulances?

So the 640 increase is just for two new ambulances?

Yes.

It doesn't include the EMS facility at Huntsman and Thompson? Or is that the $4.5 million is going to be covered under that grant?

Yeah, we'll be utilizing the ambulance fund. Correct. Yes. And then just as a reminder that $640,000 is for the purchase of two ambulances, which happens every three years. And so next year we'll see $320,000 worth of relief because we'll only have to budget for one.

Oh, that's going to be helpful. So we won't be looking at six 40 potentially next year. We'll be looking at maybe three 20.

Correct. Yeah. Or whatever the inflation cost is, but yeah, just for the one ambulance for the next two fiscal years. And then, you know, three from now we'll be looking at two again.

Appreciate the way you describe all this to the council too. You, you, you make it easily accessible. Thank you.

Okay. Next slide, please. So the equipment replacement fund, right now, currently, we are having capital outlay of $105,000, which incorporates a command vehicle of $125,000 and furniture of $70,000. This is located on page 96 of your budget book, and we still have remaining fund balance of $450,000 in that fund. Thank you.

Question on Measure S. Does Measure S get fully expended every year, the 2.7? Is it fully allocated? I know it will be this year with our budget, but is it in the past? And if it hasn't, where does that excess money go?

It stays in reserves. If more revenue comes in and less expense, it goes into the reserves.

For Measure S?

Correct.

Got it. But, yes, currently being fully expended. Got it.

Okay, so the next slide is, speaking of Measure S, this is for the fire division portion of it. It is on page 129 of your budget book. The only changes here for Measure S for the fire division, we are adding 90,000 for capital outlay, which is the new SCBAs and training, fire ops training of 30,000. SCBA means?

It stands for self-contained breathing apparatus, which are the packs that we wear when we enter fire. They've got the tanks on the back. And that's for the purchase of, it's going to be four SCBAs that we hope to purchase from the city of Kingsburg. They purchased them new and we're going to be able to purchase them at a significantly reduced rate. They've never been used. And then we'll be purchasing new cylinders to go with those that are specific to our department. Thank you.

Okay, next slide, please. We are going into the Community Development Department. That starts on page 67 on your budget book. So here we go. As far as the economic, there's really no changes there. Going down to planning, we do have Capital Alley of 52,000, which incorporates the implementation of GIS. And then just slight increases for building and building inspections. We do have budgeted the Community Development Director, which is 33% planning, 33% engineering, and 33% building. So that's included in this slide as well.

And then I'll also mention too, it's not within this specific account, it's within our economic development long range planning fund that we have, is that we are asking for funding for establishment of EIFDs. And so that way we can get those set up in various areas to help spur economic development in various areas.

Quick outline of EIFDs.

Enhanced infrastructure facility districts. So what EIFDs do is it allows you to capitalize on the increase of expected revenue from what you're currently collecting to what it will be. So that way you can... take out loans or the development can take out loans through a CFD community facilities district and then use those to build the infrastructure and then pay it back in a quicker amount of time.

Essentially borrowing against the future value of developed land.

Correct.

When it's just undeveloped land.

Yes. So it allows, basically allows for a future quick development real fast. It returns.

Yes, that's the plan.

In other words, bottom line.

Are we doing that now, city manager? Yes.

No, we are proposing it in this budget. So if the budget gets proposed at our June 16th meeting, then we would be able to go ahead and get an RFQ out and all that type of stuff to be able to move forward with that. There are certain companies that already specialize in this, but it's a good way of trying to get that economic development going, especially as we look to numerous developments that we would like to see happening here.

So it's usually only on unimproved land that has plans to develop in the future? Yes. Okay.

Next slide, please. So the next slide just shows that the engineering does show a slight increase as because we do have the 33% for the development director position. And then the next one is our business improvement district as a special revenue fund. On that one, we have allocated the 100,000 for the continued facade program. and that's on the Business Improvement District. Other than that, there's no other changes. Any other questions?

Yep. So I'm still looking to have as an agenda item the bid fees that all the businesses are charged because they're different right now. I think they're being charged based on their business license fees. I think we should look at that to make that a little more streamlined, maybe make that a little more more even throughout the um the business community um and then um in terms of the um the the downtown 100 000 um storefront improvement grant again you know we're i think we're seeing some issues with we don't have the application yet looking forward for that to people um being able to apply for that but the fact that it has to be a prevailing

wage job i think there's some interesting ideas that are that are coming out uh mayor pro tem did you have an idea about that potentially in the future i'm just considering if if this is something that can be done like contract with an individual that could be just say if he's a painter and does prevailing wage he wouldn't be an employee but he can do the job because he's licensed contracted And why couldn't we hire someone like that? If there's, say there's five businesses that are on second street that really need it done or on whatever street, you know, as long as they're part of the bid, is that something that we can consider? Like you got, say there's five businesses or building owners that say, I would like to paint my building. I'll submit an application, but you, the city has a contractor or is contracted with, this individual that's a painter, couldn't we do something like that and say, okay, we can get the painter, he'll do these five buildings since all these qualified for it and do it that way instead of sitting on something that no one's been able to use yet. And it's to me, I think it's kind of defeating the purpose. Then why did we do a bid if we can't utilize it? Because there's so many, rules that are applied, which I understand completely, but building owners wouldn't understand that. You know, they're like, well, why can't I just get a painter to do it? He's licensed, he's contracted, that doesn't qualify him. How can we just streamline the process so that we can get moving on this is what I'm asking.

And we can look into those options. And it's, you know, a good idea to look into on that. We're still subject to, you know, DIR requirements, Department of Industrial Relations, and then California Uniform Public Cost Construction Cost Accounting Act. as well for projects and then our own purchasing policy on, you know, how we procure and get bids and so on. So it's not out of the realm of possibility and it's something that we definitely can look at and we can start doing that. Regarding the bid document, I know it's something that we've been working on with our city attorney as well to make sure that gets out and make sure that it's, you know, easily understandable as well. Because there's a lot of stuff, like you said, that goes into prevailing wage DIR and that type of thing that, you know, can be quite onerous for the regular person when, you know, if I'm doing my fence, right, I can just go and get John down over at Home Depot and, you know, have them build me a fence. Right. But then when we're in the public agency, we have to, you know, jump through over several hurdles in order to do that. But yeah, it's definitely something I wrote down that we can look into.

I have a question. What happened to the design specifications? We've been waiting for those for months and months and months. I mean, what's going on with that?

We're currently working our way through the process on that. And I can let Director Moreno take over.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it was a couple of days ago, our consultant actually sent us a draft of them. So we'll review them with our city planner and city manager. And if there's any revisions, we'll work with them. But they sent us the first completed draft after we had a meeting about a month ago. So we have something in our hands now.

And this question is for the other Moreno. The other money like that you can start a band wait a minute, there's a bank called the rentals that relate. So what is the increase. Going to the bid this year it's coming year.

There is a 15,000 transfer from general fund into bed. What is it. So 50,000 in 2000. So the $100,000 is the monies in there that's allocated for the facade program. And there's, I think, $2,000 was professional services. So it's listed in detail on page 125.

I get it, but I mean, I'm asking you. Because every year I know we allocate $100,000 to the bid for, you know, do their events or whatnot. What is the total this year?

So this year, again, we're only allocating $100,000, which is for the facade program. We are transferring $15,000 from general fund into the bid to help out for the special events.

Okay, so it's $15,000. Okay, that's what I wanted. That's what I wanted to get from you. Thank you. You know, I'm kind of new at this, so a lot of this stuff is like, you know, I look at it like I have to rely on the mayor sometimes. Hey, what does this mean?

No, and that's what we're here for. We're here to answer questions and make sure that everybody's understanding, so that way everybody has the same information available to them.

Thank you.

Appreciate that. And then for $10,000 jobs or less, do those have to go out to bid for the CUPR? Yes.

$10,000? It is Michael. What was it? 1500. Is it 5,000? Yeah. 5,000.

The re quotes. So if the city, no prevailing wage is 1500, right? So anything above 1500 is prevailing wage. So if someone has a job for 1500 on their building downtown, they basically, don't have to pay prevailing wage because it's exempt for prevailing wage. If it goes over 1501, then they have to pay prevailing wage. If it's 1501 and above, yes. And Mayor Pro Tem had an interesting idea. You know, maybe the city has someone that they could assign as an independent contractor with the proper hold harmless and demarcation agreements. But for the job like that, but if it's going to be, the city's going to have to get, would the city have to get three bids if they did that for the grantees?

yes so improvement building improvement on kabka it would consider the geographic area as an overall project itself and so um any cost uh would be so you can't have like three fifteen hundred dollar projects on say high street or whatever right um dir and so on would look at that as being one public works project. And so it would require us to follow.

If the city signed the third party contractor, right. Okay. But if it was just somebody just doing a $1,499 job, the DIR has no interest in that. Right. The city's providing the grant at least currently. Okay.

And I have another question when somebody applies, is anybody going out there and helping them out to understand the issue with the, you know, Prevailing weight, because I don't think they understand, you know, how that works. I mean, they're applying, but then they get denied because it's not prevailing weight. But if somebody won't go out and say, you know, this is what this is the process, which you got to follow. So you can do it because I mean, I think they're in the dark out there.

yeah no and we can work on that and i'm working on uh developing something that is um a bit more user-friendly on on that process um i've developed something like that before um for city staff and i can uh develop something again like that and real quick i know we're not doing this as an agenda item but so somebody has a five thousand dollar job on some windows

and otherwise qualifies, but they don't have prevailing wage, can they just apply for a $1,499 grant? If it's not subject to prevailing wage above.

It's total project cost. Total project cost, whether or not the city is buying the grant for it. Yeah, it's not in the statutes, but the DIR opinions, they don't, like you said before, they don't allow you to break a single project into parts. but they're also looking at the whole project. So if the value of the project, in this case a maintenance project, is over $1,500, if any of it, if $1 is public fund, then it requires prevailing wage.

Even if it's under $1,500?

Right, because the project is over, well, no, if the project is over $1,500, but $1 in public money is used, then prevailing wage requirement attaches.

but they couldn't also do like apply one month for $1,500, right? And replace three windows. And then three months later apply for another loan for $1,500 because they also look at a calendar year based on that. So it would be considered one project because it's one facility.

And I think that's where the mayor pro tem suggestion comes up because the key to prevailing wage projects, is that the contractor understand them because they can register the project, get the DIR number, and then they have to provide the payroll records and so on. But if we were able to, say, I guess, consolidate grants and the city put out proposals and hire one contractor to do multiple jobs, then that project, you know, because these projects for the contractor, if they're small projects, they're spending so much time doing the paperwork that that they're going to back that into the cost. But if they have one larger contract, even if it's at multiple locations, they're only doing the paperwork once. So it may just be more efficient if you can combine those types of things, even if it's different projects. I mean, as long as you hire a general... You have one painting contractor for all these small jobs.

You get a general window contractor. Exactly. But you put it out to bid to be that one window contractor, be that painting contractor, and you're... meeting the bid requirement.

You could even put it out for a general who would hire subs to do the individual work, and the general would register the entire project under DIR and submit all the paperwork. But yeah, the DIR over the years has developed dozens and dozens of opinions about splitting projects and spreading projects out, and that's where they came up with the one-year limit and so on. They're not actually in the statutes. You have to go to all these opinion papers.

What do you need from the council to move forward on that to put it out for general? How do you need us to phrase it? Just make it an agenda item and just say, look, can you look into a general contractor to do all of this?

We can do that as a future agenda item.

Once you get the applications in and have scope of work you can develop for a contractor to put out the bid. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for that input.

Okay, now we're going to go over the public works department starting on page 160 of your budget book, going over parks and streets. So here we have parks. Some highlights here, there is a slight decrease in personnel, making them aligned to the prior fiscal years. We do highlight here that we're adding a splash park pad, 120,000 coming out of Parks and Rec for parks from impact fees. Also, you'll see a difference there on the purchase of the Moscow Lights compared to this year. Going down to the bottom on the special revenue for streets, there's really no changes there. And that's the only thing we have for public works. We can continue to the next slide, please. We have our building and utilities, internal service funds. We do have some capital outlay for some street work there. And you'll see the transfer of $600,000 there. That's to offset the deficit in our budget. And then going down to the transit, there's really no changes there. And that's reflective on page 153 of your budget book.

How much is FTA contributing to the general fund this year?

So we do have a transfer of 220,000 out of transit into the general fund, which is listed in detail on page 178 of the budget book. Going on to the next slide, we can go over the community services department. And here we go, so the recreation and the recreation sports, there's really just a slight increase on personnel in talking to the director. They did some restructuring now that they're fully staffed with the supervisor. Some highlights here is that we do have what, almost $5,000 for some software registration. as well as we did allocate $270,000 for the Pioneer Village for the restrooms. That's detailed on page 138. And also, again, I'm going to highlight the $120,000 for the splash pad.

I have some questions on that. The $270,000 for the bathrooms, we did a walkthrough with... Director Hahn and we all agreed that it's going to take about 100,000 to do that project. I know there's money in the Pioneer Village Fund. How can we can use that?

I can go over that at the end of the Enterprise Fund.

Well, and then we can use that. I mean, it's a restricted fund over for that area, but also the parks development impact fees are also restricted funds able to be used for parks improvements as well. So what we try to do is we try to take from restricted funds and put them to those. So either one is... able to be used from there?

I'm saying it because people who have been wanting those bathrooms, they don't care where you get them. They just want it done. They've been wanting it. Citizens have been, Liz can tell you, they've been wanting the bathrooms from Director Hunt too. I mean, that is, I don't know if you go there, but some of those bathrooms, portables, those porta-potties, after a couple hours in the sun, they get kind of

Nasty if I may use that word.

Also, did this budget for recreation include any of the grants that were given by the healthcare district?

Yes, the revenue is recorded in the budget, yes.

Okay, where would it be at?

Which part would it be on? If that happened this fiscal year, it'll be in reserves. It'll carry out. If we haven't expanded, it'll carry out for next year's reserves. But it's going to show there, right? When the money comes in, yes.

It'll show on revenues. No, I just wanted to say, I don't know a lot of this stuff.

No.

I mean, I don't even know what impact fees are, to tell you the truth.

Yeah, so... Development impact fees are when a new house is built or a new business or something like that is built. We have a development impact fee study that was done a few years ago that says that their impact to the community is X amount. They're going to impact the streets here or parks here for this amount. And then based upon a calculation that is done determines how much the development pays for future improvements. And so, but those are specifically can only be used for improving those facilities. You can't use them for maintenance. You can't use them for operations. Yeah.

I remember I was the chair for the community service commission for over 20 years. And, uh, But I remember back then it used to be like a $1,200, but then somewhere I can remember that they said that they wanted the builders to build parks instead of paying development fees. So did that change?

There's two methods of that. There is park fees in lieu, and then there's donation. a lot of cities' agencies have moved towards actually having them build them and donate them now because it's cheaper for them to do it than for us to collect the funds and then go back.

So do they have a choice?

I'm kind of hearing two different... Yeah, there's charges for that if they elect not to put in a park. Yes.

That's why we got Thompson Park, right?

Mm-hmm.

That's a different story.

One more question here, Jason. You brought a good question up. On the pioneer situation with the historic society, the restricted fund, how restricted are they? Can you give us some more of them next to the council? What can we use and what cannot use on those particular restricted funds? funds here in the Pioneer situation there?

So funds that are collected for Pioneer Village would only be able to be used for Pioneer Village for...

improvements on that one i have to look at that one that's not a development impact fee so that may for parking can be used for parking and stuff like that parking would be an improvement yes okay all right because there's an area there on the corner that i've noticed that there's some weeds there we can expand the parking in that area but we do have a vent you know i look at the geographical area i mean there is as an old saying there's always room for improvement but there's a lot of room for improvement there. And I just want to ask you that quick question.

The restriction on that particular... Yeah, we couldn't take those funds and move them over to like Schaefer Park or something like that.

Only in that area. That's what I'm talking about. Only in that area. Okay.

Thank you. I have another question. What about the building that's falling down? I mean, a citizen brought up the concern that, you know, they have kids that go out there sometimes, and they go and play in the building, you know, and if it was to fall, that's a big liability. I know I spoke to you on it, and do we get any...

response or where we are with that because I mean that's that's a big liability for the city that thing falls on somebody then we need to get our budget goodbye yeah we need to get we need to get some bids to for demolish demolishing that and David Horn or Director Fletcher may be able to provide more context on that

Yeah, that's been a conversation that we've had for a few years now. And I think that we just need to, to, to look at some sources for that and see how, how we can get rid of the building in the beginning at the front of the park. Yeah, that has been a concern that we've had for some years.

I think we need to move past the conversation because, I mean, how much liability can we have as a city if that was to fall on somebody? You know, I mean, that's...

The city could start putting a sign out that says, don't approach the building, too, and warn. I mean, the essence of liability is warning of a hazard. So if you at least put some signage, the city's probably still going to be... What if it was to fall down overnight?

Did I say that? No. I'm I know last year there was some money allocated for some alive we doing that this year again or director. All right, what was the question last year there was some money allocated by Council for some alive are we doing that this year again or that's not in your budget.

Yes, there are much US I for some alive I have through our community services budget allocated $2000 can we look at a little more.

Maybe 5,000.

I will take any recommendation that you would like.

I mean, some of our events are getting more and more expensive, as you know, and most of our stuff is done through donations. Once those donations dry up, then, you know, some of us are going to have to say goodbye and have you do everything. Just ask it.

No, we can. And as Director Moreno pointed out earlier, right now we stand at a $354 surplus. So any increases, because that would be to the general fund for some alive. So any increases would then go into a deficit for the current fund.

I would look at that legal fund, look at splitting the difference with the city attorney because, you know, 25% increase given fairly static legal costs over the past couple of years, maybe take that down to a 12.5% increase and maybe build that back in for something like Selma Live. Also, I was going to ask where our ice skating rink is for Lincoln Park. I know you guys are pricing that out and it's somewhere between $15,000 and $35,000 depending on the service options. But that would just be so awesome for our residents to have a nice skating rink in Selma. It's not in there, is it? No.

And it's also a moneymaker, too. I have a few other inquiries that I'm waiting to hear back from.

There's a city. Who was it, Jim?

But it was, yeah, I think $35,000, $40,000 for a four-hour rental.

A skating rink, cool.

A one-time, four-hour rental.

Hanford does it. They have all the information.

That's why you get bids.

Thank you for the info.

So, Mayor, just for the recommendation to reduce the city attorney to 12.5% opposed to 25%?

Are we good with that, Council? Good with reducing that 12.5%?

He just answered earlier, so.

Yes. Okay. Yes. And then increasing some alive to 5,000.

I'm alive. It's a two right now. I'll get greedy is some alive to 4,000.

No, I'm just kidding. 5,000. I was going to ask you something else over here, but it's been really good for our community.

Okay. So any more questions on pioneer village? We're good. Yes.

So I'm sorry. So if we have the money, when can we start doing those bathrooms?

Sorry, I'm not on. We wouldn't be able to go out until the budget is approved and the budget takes effect. So we'd be able to start doing that and accruing those costs with that July 1st.

Yeah, because you got the big events coming up. You got the Tejano, and then you have the Day of the Dead. Yeah. So this would be perfect.

Yeah. There will be some engineering that is most likely involved. We know that we have some connections and everything that are needed over there. And then go out for the RFQ and make sure that we're compliant with state law.

Anybody with a public comment at this time?

How much is allocated for the bathrooms? $270,000. $275,000. And that's not including, I know there's a proposal that's going to be going to the Selma Healthcare District. That's not including that, correct?

And there's a T-Mobile grant out there for $50,000 as well.

Hopefully, but if they can get funding from the... the Selma Healthcare District Board. I know they're just waiting for an attorney to, you know, get together with them and see which one they're going to hire. And they're going to bring some of these proposals that have been on hold. So that would be subtracted from the $275,000 where you guys would be able to, in the future, use whatever comes from the healthcare district. You can use that towards something else.

Is that correct? That is correct. And most likely what that would be then is that would be an adjustment on the mid-year budget. Great. Thank you. Adding it back.

Good deal.

Okay, so let's continue with community services. My last point out there, I do wanna indicate also that we had 50,000 put aside from parks and rec impact fees for the softball fields of 50,000. So our next slide on page 30 of our, there you go, page 30 of our Our slide continues with the senior center, and that's on page 86 of your budget book. Again, as mentioned earlier, there was some promotion structure, so it does indicate a slight decrease both in senior citizen and senior center nutrition.

I have a question and that last year around we allocated $10,000 courtesy of come from a novelist. Is that included in the budget this year they're requesting that again with the which the one time deal.

That was not included in the budget this year.

It was a one-time deal.

And as a question strokes. Feed them to it.

No. I have so many questions. No, that's okay. That's okay.

You know, on the senior budget, I'll be honest with you. You know, I like to increase the senior budget a little bit. I could. The law counsel here, you know, we're at on this budget right now. Just, you know, I like to put back the 10 grand. the one time that we put it back, and see how we can create some meals, regular meals for the seniors, and work with the other entities around this, how does their program and how Fowler does their program meal program and we could see we can learn from that and and that's why I'm asking maybe maybe put 10 grand and then maybe other agencies can volunteer their their time and effort into the senior program just reduced the legal by 25,000 added 3,000 for yeah the Selma live so we're we've got 22,000

I think in unallocated at this point. I don't know.

How much are we putting in right now? Yeah, that's a good question. How much is going in right now?

For senior meals?

For senior meals.

I've increased it to 45,000.

45,000 is what they get in here? What did you increase it from?

From 40. Okay.

They got 5,000. Okay. And Just so that I understand, what is this $45,000 going to? Just strictly to their meals?

Strictly the meals that we pay for.

And you're paying this to who?

To Fresno EOC. So it's about, it's almost $8 a meal. And I... foresee that increasing July 1st. Normally they increase the rates. I just haven't gotten the new rates for this year. Yes.

Okay. So I just want to confirm, do we have no one cooking meals for the seniors at this time?

So we do have staff that will provide some kind of Baked good or we do use the kitchen. It is just not used on a regular basis.

Okay.

That's what you're looking for.

We just purchased these ovens. It cost us, what, $10,000 a piece? Oh, no, more than that. $15,000, I think. $40,000. Oh, no. Why would we purchase these expensive ovens if they're not being used on a regular basis? I thought that was the purpose, was to purchase these ovens because they needed them. They needed for preparation of meals. And we're not using these. We could have saved that money and used it to get them food brought in or something instead of I mean I'm just I'm just a little bit surprised why we would have done that if if that wasn't a really need because you're telling me right now we're not cooking meals for them so why would we make those kind of purchases

If I could jump in, Mayor Pro Tem, part of the purpose for replacing those ovens were that neither one of them were functioning properly and they were outdated to a point where we could not facilitate parts for them. So they had to be replaced. They were non-functioning when they were replaced.

Okay, well, you're saying we had to replace them, but if no one's using them, why would we replace them?

Right, and we are using them. It's just not on a necessarily frequent basis. We're using them for special events, and so we do have staff that will cook off of the grills and use the ovens and the stove top. Again, it's not on a daily basis.

I can tell you that the Salazar Center uses theirs on a daily basis for the Boys and Girls Club.

So the EOC doesn't provide meals, to your knowledge, for the Boys and Girls Club? No, they do their own cooking, Scott. They do their own?

They also have a third party that they utilize as well that will deliver.

What's the third party?

I don't know the name of their third party.

So EOC is having a meeting here Thursday night in our Selma City Chambers. I'm at COG. We have people who are, you know, everybody seems to have meetings at night.

I'll be here.

So hopefully you guys should show up because one of the board members of EOC has said, bring this up because the seniors, when we were the me, you were in there, director Fletch, we were all in there. Um, well, two of us were in there and the council, and then the, you know, um, the, um, parks and community services and our city manager, um, he heard the several of the seniors say that the meal there, the meals, they just don't like the meals from EOC. Um, And when that was brought up to the EOC board member, he said, bring that up at our meeting on Thursday and we'll discuss alternatives. Yeah, because they didn't like stuff like the quinoa, I think. They didn't like the quinoa. They didn't like the quinoa. I think there's just a general unhappiness with the kind of prepackaged nature of. It doesn't look that appealing.

When they showed the pictures. It didn't. And then we're also doing that survey. Right. It's going out, I think, this week.

Great.

um, to our seniors. So that way we can get more input from them specifically on, you know, improvements and stuff that they would like. Yeah.

They want to see more pizza. They want to, you know, we want to tailor the menu to what the seniors are. the cauliflower crust pizza, right? So, you know, there's, I don't want people, I mean, that's the tricky part. It has to be nutritionally viable, but at the same time, it has to taste good. Um, so I, I, I get that balancing act, but if, if there are most of them just don't like the meals provided by, by the EOC, I think it would be wise to give the EOC a first shot, you know, just to see what they can do in terms of variety. We had public comment on this, on this issue. Yep, we can do that.

So I'm glad this is coming up. I know that some of the seniors have been complaining for a very long time, and I believe there's about 15 that showed up when you guys went to that meeting. So my question is, just so I understand, because when they come and try to explain all this, I'm really confused. Just so I understand. So we pay... EOC 40,000 a year so they could provide meals for the seniors Monday through Friday, is that correct? And they eat breakfast meals or lunch meals? Which one is it? Probably lunch, right? By lunch, okay. So they have to pay $8 per meal or what do the seniors have to pay?

Is it $3 or how much do the seniors pay? It's on your honor.

Right. There is no obligation to pay anything. So what it is, is it's a suggested $3 donation. What we're trying to implement is a no-show policy. So we've been having a lot of seniors who will register for a meal consecutively and then not come. And then that meal goes to waste and it gets thrown away. And so if they have three no-shows in a month, that's when we're trying to implement that $8 cost of the meal to pay for the meal that is just being tossed.

Rose, can I... Hold on. Hold on, Jim. Let me just stick to understanding. So they don't have to pay, but there's a suggestion for them when they come. They register before because I try to register and you got to register the day before. So you guys have a certain amount to feed. So and actually the hamburger was really good. I actually enjoyed that hamburger. But I know you guys don't have the hamburger all the time, but I don't know because I don't I don't eat every day. I'm just trying to really understand because they've been at our office constantly. So when I talk back with them, I want to make sure I'm understanding and not understanding. So what happens is how often are the no shows and then they have to pay? a certain amount of money and what happens to that money.

Right so luckily they have been very often so we haven't really had to enforce that at this time it's again a policy that we were just testing out but that $8 would go towards just our revenue that we would take in for donations and then that's that goes back into the general fund to pay for the meals.

Okay, so we do have that meeting Thursday. I know I have a cemetery meeting, but I will be trying to attend to ask them questions as well. So I'm just trying to understand in the future if they are absolutely still not happy because they had pictures of these meals and they did look pretty disgusting. So if, for example, if it doesn't work out, what EOC, and we are, the citizens are paying Forty thousand would let's just say comes back. I don't know if it comes back to council or how we get rid of them because they're not they're not, you know, comforting our seniors and helping them out. Would we be able to use that forty thousand to hire somebody so they cook fresh meals for them? would that be something in the future to be- She's applying for 45 this year. Right, but I'm just saying, we're applying for 45,000. So if nothing happened, I mean, if the seniors are still miserable and this food is still not where it should be, and they're still complaining, would we be able to use that 45,000 in the future to hire somebody who will cook fresh meals for them? Would that be a possibility? in the future for them. So we can let them know that. Okay, I'm just asking, thank you.

Thank you. I had one question I wanted to ask you. Approximately how many seniors are we feeding per day?

Depends. I want to say probably Monday, Wednesday, we're feeding about 30, 25 to 30. And Tuesday, Thursday, our numbers We're a little bit lower. We feed about 15 to 20.

Okay, so Monday through Wednesday is about 25 to 30?

Yep, those are our busier days. It also depends on the meal. So if it's hamburger day, I can tell you that we're going to have 55 to 60 people sign up for lunch. If it's drumstick day, we're probably going to have 50.

How about quinoa day?

Yeah, we haven't been able to get away from you all day. Yeah, they know. Okay.

I have a comment on that. Um, you see them providing meals forever for a long time. So my thing is, I think with that given you see, like the mayor said, a chance to try to work, you know, with the city and try to make it better. I think we're doing a disservice not only to them, but you know, um, The director's already asking for a 5,000 increase, and I think we should leave it at that. I mean, we could always give them the other 5,000 later if it need be, but I think the most important thing right now is to talk to the board. I know they're going to introduce their new CBO. on Thursday and Matt's part of the board. So we have connections with, with EOC that, you know, they could even come down and we with the seniors and try to rectify the pot. I just don't believe in getting rid of somebody because somebody complained because we need to get their side and they, they don't even know this stuff is going on. So anyway, that's my two cents.

They're getting that prior notice. They've indicated a willingness to work with the seniors and work with the city, keep it cost effective. So I think they should get that chance.

Back to the question. Are we going to donate 10 grand?

The director is increasing the budget by 40 to 45.

Okay, 45. Okay. All right. On the other note, well, one of the Salma Healthcare board members was with me. We went to the seniors. You weren't around, Liz. And we've seen how much they collected. on that particular day. Unfortunately, it was a little over $2, you know, volunteered, you know, it's not. And, and so, um, I didn't ask what they had that day. The seniors, of course I didn't eat there either to today a day either. So, but, uh, just let you know, you know, um, On that note, I know they're on a fixed income. I get it. In our community, we want to help our people. That's why every Wednesday, Christian Cafe, different denominations, different people help the churches in our community have a meal at night and get together. It's a good thing. Environmentally, stress, less stress. They get together. people you never know sit at different tables and they talk and you get to know about their lives a little bit and they get you discuss your life a little bit and they feel but at the end of the meal they feel better because they got a good meal and they leave happy and that's what life's about you know so maybe the EOC could get in touch with our director and maybe even set up a little

get together with the seniors just to ask them what they're looking for in terms of their menu preferences.

I know that they did that a few years back. That was a conversation that they have had. We have no exclusivity to having to use EOC either. I think there's other options that we can look into and potentially work with some of our local restaurants.

Yeah, maybe see the Boys and Girls Clubs using if they're happy with that.

Right. And so it's definitely at the top of our radar at this time.

Sounds good. Yeah.

Right, so our next slide is our animal services, animal shelter, which is on page 93 of your budget book. So as you know, we did some transition from the police department to recreation for animal shelter. There's just a slight increase on personnel. Other than that, it's just the continuing programs they have for the spay and neuter and so forth with the vaccine clinics and so forth. Other than that, there's no changes on the animal shelter. Going on to the next question.

You're going too fast for us.

Sorry, sorry.

The 9% is for what, for wages or salaries? That's all salary increases. No new hires or anything like that, right?

No, it's whatever we have currently right now. Animals.

I just want to commend animal services because I finally got my, I'm going to get my voucher for my dog. You know, I figure it was time since I got a lot of the . It was time because, you know, it's been a long time. Also, I just want to find out what kind of outreach we're doing because there was a Spanish-speaking gentleman on Facebook, on what you say social media, that was asking, you know, where can they take their animal? to get spayed or neutered and i said you know call the animal shelter my thing is are we doing outreach to the spanish-speaking community or how are we doing outreach i mean i have two other people that might be able to give us money but i want to wait and see what kind of outreach we're doing because i mean if they haven't heard about it then we're not really out you know reaching out um and it's pretty sad that social media is gonna you know go on fire when they find out but i mean we need to do something to get a hold of these people and say you know i mean there's still a lot of animals running around and uh you know we need to start working on that too thanks for joining us so anyway that's my two cents i know the mayor's got something to say on that too

Yep, I do. And the, in terms of the, the spay and neuter program, I know we're going to get an update at the next council meeting on that. Looking forward to that. Wanted to give a big shout out to the animal shelter for Friday when we had our, our, our event, our food truck, our second food truck Fridays event, there was a dog walking around the park, lying in the water in distress called the animal shelter. I mean, they were, over they didn't answer initially they called me back in about one minute that that's been a major pet peeve of people in the city like they never answer animal shelter called me right back they had two people come out and um pick up the dog and they got the dog in the in the van and they chipped him and they wanted him for a chip he had a chip he lived on you know one of the streets they took him home and it went beautifully they found the home he just got out I would love to see that in every instance, but I mean that just shows that the system is working, one of the issues that has kind of come up is is does the animal shelter have the capacity in terms of. for animal control. Those two folks that came out are longtime shelter employees. They're very good at what they were doing. Our animal services manager couldn't be with us that night because he was taking several dogs to rescue. So, I mean, it's working. These people have a heart for animals. We just don't have the budget for an additional animal control officer. My question is, can someone be reallocated towards an animal control position? Or is that something that someone can be trained for who's there right now? In other words, can you have the best of both worlds and have animal control with existing personnel so it doesn't bust the budget?

Possibly.

Maybe.

Possibly. I think it would just make daily operations a little bit more difficult if we're taking somebody away from just the overall... just responsibilities of the shelter, but that is something I can look into and discuss.

And I don't quite understand what is meant by animal control as opposed to, you know, cleaning in the morning and checking animals in and vaxing them and, you know, doing all the things that you have to do with the shelter. Because I know when we were involved in the shelter, everybody did everything, you know, an animal control, but the animal control officer to go out there and actually pick up an animal or no, no volunteers did that. That was a very specialized task that you went out because you could really get hurt. If you go out and you don't know what you're doing with a catch pole or something like that. So I would assume that cross training, our council member has very validly brought up. You don't want to have people doing too many job descriptions. You can't do that. You've got to pay a person for what they do and you got to be careful of doing too much. So, um, I just want to put that on your radar that maybe in the future, you know, we may want to look at that to enhance service even further because I saw it work really well on Friday. And if it could work even better, I think we need to look at that in the future.

That's a good point, and I made a note of it, so that way we can continue.

On another note, like my esteemed colleague would say, I submitted some information to our city manager about the previous people that were doing the shelter, and they have a couple of vehicles that are equipped. to pick up animals, and he's looking into that. Maybe we can purchase one of them at a reduced cost. I know we want a new one. I would like a new car too, but I don't have the money for it. But if we can look into that, maybe, you know, because these have air conditioning and they have everything. That's what they bought them for.

So Fleet currently has received that information from the city manager, and we're doing a full assessment of the vehicles at this time.

I have a quick question. Are we still contracted with City of Kingsburg?

Yes.

And when does your contract expire?

June 30th of this year.

Have we looked at that contract?

I've had some discussion with our city manager regarding that contract, yes.

How much revenue is built in for that contract? We didn't budget the revenue into that this year because there's been discussion about terminating that agreement so that way we can focus on services in Selma. But that means I have to send that out this week.

In a six-month?

No, 30-day.

30-day? Okay.

Otherwise it renews. Rolls over. Yeah.

Okay, so let's go on to the next slide, which is our community services culture arts. This is on page 90 of your budget book. It does reflect for the general fund culture arts site increase in personnel as well as $25,000 for capital hourly for the continued lighting and basement replacements. And then going on to the internal enterprise fund for the cultural arts, which is listed on page 157 of your budget book. Again, slight increase on personnel. Other than that, that's all we have for cultural arts.

I have a question. What about the painting outside and inside and the carpet and all that? Is that included on this? Is it money they requested for that?

So just the $25,000 that we put down for a basement replacement as well as lighting.

Yeah, because the painting is going to cost about $25,000 for the outside. And I thought we were going to allocate money somehow, somewhere, you know. That's a nice sort.

I did not budget that in my current.

How about the carpet, new carpet? Do we have that in there?

Carpet was not budgeted. Going back to this baseline budget and trying to balance the budget, that was not part of the allocation for this fiscal year.

So we took $50,000. No, we took $25,000. And how much do we have left, Director?

The attorney originally was $25,000, so we cut it in half for $12,500. Of that, we're using $5,000 for the recreation, leaving $7,500 left.

correct? We were, we were 250 on the attorney and then, uh, they took out 25,000 correct on that. Um, and then increase some alive, uh, from 3000 that we currently have budgeted to 5,000. So that's $2,000 out of that 25 K leaving 23,000, uh, leftover.

Okay. Council want to use the 23,000 paint and carpet, the art center.

Well, look at the enterprise. I mean, they look like they're profitable on the culture arts. Am I correct?

I don't think. So right now, they are running in it. I'll go over the enterprise fund in the next couple of slides. But right now, the culture arts is in a deficit, actually revenue over expenses of $158,000. And yes, they are running in the red for the culture arts.

It was $158,000 deficit, not...

Which is why we have general fund contributions over into this TOT, that type of thing as well.

20% of that, 50% of that TOT goes towards the Arts Center. Mm-hmm.

It's 50% to all of them, and then it gets divided up between parks and the arts center.

$300,000 goes towards parks and arts center, and $300,000 just goes into the general fund, which actually does go back to the arts center potentially with the deficit.

So on page 178 does show the proposed transfers. So we budgeted 600,000 for the TOT. 50% of that is 300,000. Of that, 50% is going back to parks. 30% is going back to Pioneer Village of 90,000. And yes, arts, cultural arts is getting 20%, which is 60,000.

They get the least amount of everybody. Even Pioneer Village, when nobody uses for anything, gets more money.

So that was based on the Measure K that was approved?

Yeah, that's a voter thing. But the $300,000 goes into the general fund. So that's what the council could allocate. But those other percentages are based on voters. Correct. And can't change those. So is council good with $23,000 towards painting, the art center, and carpeting?

Can't do it.

Can't do it. If I could real quick, the $23,000 is allocated for painting, and then there's new dressing rooms that are going to be built in the basement area for the players. We already have a plan submitted through building department, through plan check. That'll be done in-house. It'll just be cost of materials for that.

Is that already budget for?

That's the $23,000.

No, that's your $23,000 that you've already.

That's the $23,000 that we're discussing right now.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no. So this fiscal.

This fiscal year, we have funding for.

Funding for some of these projects, but we have requested an additional $25,000 for the upcoming fiscal year to continue some of the projects that we're currently working on.

Like the downtown dressing or downstairs dressing rooms.

And that would be most likely part of it, but we have some issues with lighting both indoors and outdoors and so that's what we're asking for at this time.

Okay, so that does not include your carpet or correct it does not include it could with the 23 be enough for carpeting and painting.

Not. I believe the carpeting quote alone was about $35,000. $35,000. $40,000.

That's a lot of money for carpeting. What did you go through? The guy that's doing the White House?

Always reach out to several vendors. We never just go to one person. I believe that that quote came from Mike, who did some of the tile carpeting, the local vendor here in Selma, I think he was the lowest that came in at around $40,000.

I'd have to go back and pull those quotes. What if the art center joined the bid? Art center is downtown, then couldn't the art center apply for a downtown storefront grant of $10,000? I mean... Of that $100,000, so then you could take $10,000.

Good, but I mean, it's general fund monies anyway, so it's, you know...

But the $100,000 has already been budgeted.

Yeah. So it would be part of the original budgeted monies on that. So you get an extra $10,000 out of that, right?

Out of the downtown storefront improvement? Does it say it has to be an actual third-party-owned building, or can it be a public building downtown? I'm not sure on that.

I need to look into that and the legalities on it.

I don't want to throw just a little bit at a problem that's a lot bigger. You know, 23,000, if it's not going to work, we can use it in other areas.

I agree. Then you continue with the same problem. It doesn't look that bad.

I agree. The other thing, too, is on specific projects that may not be funded within the current budget is that we can go through the process of getting bids or quotes and everything, and that can be discussed as a potential future allocation issue. After approval of the budget similar to what we've done with other projects such as Schaefer lights stuff like that we don't have the exact costs on that, other than maybe the carpet squares. But. Or we identify some other places that. The other option too is that if council is comfortable, they can spend above and deficit spun. As Director Moreno pointed out, our current fund balance is at 70%, but we do anticipate hits to the budget next year or deficit next year. And so anything that we do this year is going to decrease what we have next year.

Well, I just want to make it clear, just like the city of Fresno did, that the city is not making any less money. The city is, the sales tax is moving forward and increasing. Businesses are doing better. It's the expenses that are increasing greater than the revenues are increasing. So before anybody gets the idea that, you know, we're not collecting as much because businesses aren't doing as well, it's just not the case. It's just expenses like everywhere else in the economy are just spiraling upwards. I mean, I think Mayor Dyer made that point very succinctly when he was doing, when he was talking about city of Fresno's budget deficit, which is significant. So we're not unlike just about every other city around right now. And we're just trying to get the best bang for our buck. But I guess my point is that if the 23,000 isn't going to make much of a difference for the arts center, maybe we should address that at another time when we can actually you know, do the whole thing.

Yeah, we can do that, and we can continue to look for those options.

I have another question. Couldn't the carpeting be done in-house?

That's a project way too large for the current staff that we have.

What about reaching out to the trades to come in? We can buy the squares. I mean, when I was in Fresno County, they did the fairgrounds building, and they brought the inmates in, and they did it while we were sitting there. Okay, you know, your turn, move the desk, throw the glue down, slap them on there, mamonos. They did it in one day. I mean, we can reach out. The trades have always told us if we needed help with any projects to let them know.

Yeah, no, and that's a great idea. And I know that we had this conversation offline about doing something like that. And we can reach out to CVTC and see what that looks like and go from there. And see, I wouldn't want to put a number on that right now without talking to them and seeing what that is. But at the end of the day, you know, we still have that opportunity. What, 23,000 left over?

And I think what you're hearing is we do not want to deficit spend. We're not going to do that. We're going to balance our budget. And we really applaud you for balancing that budget this year.

You know, the shelters at the Schaefer, there was a time when they were done by the trades. Doug Kessler knew what's in the trades. And he got the trades to come out. All we did is buy the material. And it came out one Saturday. Let's go.

We're the home of the CBTT center. So, I mean, we've got the training center and Chuck, then they're, they're looking for public works to come over and do a seminar one day for their, for their training, for their school. And it could work both ways where they could help us out too. Do we have a public comment?

Did I hear 35? Was that the correct for the carpet only? Is that correct?

40.

So my question is, why are we just throwing out a number in there? Why aren't we prepared to come and say, I got three quotes here. And I just want to make sure we go with some material that's suitable, not something that's going to get us in trouble later. That's not going to be material that fits the arts. It actually needs it. I mean, we get a lot of people that come visit this art center. I agree that the carpet needs to be done, but to just throw a number out there, 35 to 40,000 without any quotes is, I don't get that. I don't get why we're never prepared with certain quotes. If we have to go outside, I'm sorry, because we're going to get a bad quote. we should always be prepared and have people right in front of us. And it just prolongs and prolongs and prolongs because we're discussing it. Oh, it's in the works. It's just go. Got it.

Thank you. And we did have quotes related to this. That's where we got the 40,000 from. And when we were doing our initial budgets, you know, we threw everything in. into the budgets yeah and that gave us uh you know our kind of starting point and then from there we had to start looking at ways that we could trim the budget back which as was mentioned by director Moreno earlier was essentially it was a base budget reset to base which is what should be done every year and then you build from there so that way you can balance your budget And so some of these projects that we would like to do and would love to do right now ended up as a casualty, but they are still on the table and can always be put in with the direction of council. Got it. We'll definitely look at that.

Go ahead, carry on. I'm going to hit the restroom really quickly so we can get done tonight, but I'll be right back. Anybody else? Frame one.

Okay, so the next slide here is our special revenue funds again we I touched upon this with the fire and police like it's on page 126 of your budget book again, it is running in a deficit of 761,000 However, we do have estimated fund balance around 2 million in the measure as fund. Going on to the next slide is our enterprise funds. And our enterprise, as we mentioned, incorporates ambulance, garbage, transit, pioneer, and culture arts. And again, these are treated like a business. So I wasn't sure about the $23,000 for the culture arts because we would have to transfer that money then from the general fund into a business, culture arts. If we look now at the ambulance fund, it does show a surplus of 419. Our garbage is also showing us revenue over expenses of 8,900. Shown in a deficit currently right now is our transit center and as well as our cultural arts of 158,000. Any questions on enterprise funds?

So just so I'm clear, I do this as a business. So on your village, or the culture art, you said 158 deficits. So are we, we're not profitable?

That is correct. So our expenses exceed our revenues. If you look at the fund sources on page 10 and 11 of the budget book, it breaks down the beginning fund balance. It breaks down money's coming in and money's going out. So our culture arts right now, it is sitting on a deficit of $469,000. So every time we transfer monies in, we try to, you know, it gets better every year, but we're still running in the deficit. Going on to the next slide is our capital improvement projects. Again, this is just a list of all our projects going on throughout the city. It lists the project's name, the amount, and also the funding sources where they're coming from. And again, they're all coming from different sources. So our total projects is 11.3 million. And so these are the practices currently going on as details starting on page 100 of the budget book. Questions on capital?

So we are on schedule for the Dyneva McCall traffic signal light. Is that correct?

We're still in the phase of the right-of-way purchase. And so as that phase finishes, then we will finish up the design and move into construction.

Okay. Going on to any other questions on Capitol Alley? Okay, so the last slide we have is our desk service funds. More question. Yes, sir.

On the CID piping bike trail. What's the time? What's the timeframe on that one?

I believe that funding is available through next spring. So the consultants worked on an extension with the state for the construction funds, and they're wrapping up the design still. and then they'll move into construction during this next fiscal year.

Okay. Is that on track, David? Is that more or less on track?

I think we've made progress. The design consultants made progress with CID and an understanding of what that trail will look like. So we've had a couple meetings with them in the last few weeks, both from a right-of-way acquisition and easement need. So they are moving forward, yes.

And Neil, I believe, provided some language or reviewed some language from them on the easement.

Yes, an agreement between CID and the city.

Oh, yeah. All right. Thanks, David. Thank you.

So I wanted to address the mayor's question on the special revenue. So mayor, we are going over the capital on premise project. So total is 11.3. As you can see, a lot of the funding sources come from special revenues, the CDBG, the measure C flex, the C Mac. So if you look at our fund sources on page 10 and 11, the special revenue fund consists of a lot of, is restricted for a special purpose. So a lot of our funding for these projects are listed in the special revenue, which fluctuates every year. So that's why you see the difference on special revenue. And again, we had some activities this year for our development impact fees. So you'll see that and all the projects are listed as capital. And that's why there's there's an increase on special revenue to 20 million point four.

So would measure measure C have been under special revenue as well?

That is correct. So on page 10 of your fund sources recap, it starts off your special revenue with traffic safety, starting with fund 2000, and it goes through the next page through impact fees to 2400 series of fund numbers, and it's all incorporated in the special revenue funds.

If measure C does get on the ballot and it goes through, Are we going to do a budget amendment and build it back in mid-year? Yes. Okay.

And so with that, I mean, that's actually looking pretty healthy with $20,459,000, and that's without Measure C. It's a percentage of Measure C. We're using Measure C until it retires, which is three-quarters of the year, I believe.

Got it. So that's 75% of the Measure C. Yeah. Okay. That's a little bit less, so it's 500,000 less. So it would have been about the same with the Measure C fully funded.

Yeah, so what essentially the budget does this year is that it takes into account that only three quarters of Measure C is funded this year. And then existing projects that we already had in the pipeline are either expending that or dipping into the Measure C reserves on that.

I have a question, not a question, but I forgot when we were talking about the cultural arts. There was a donation made by Cal Water. I don't know how much the amount is, but it was for the May 16th Beer Fest. So I want to make sure that that amount, when it hits the city, that it gets put in for next year's event. I don't know how much it is. I asked the gentleman, but it's usually $2,500, but he hasn't responded, so. And then we're always concerned about not having enough help for different things. But I don't know if you guys are aware that Workforce Connection has a youth program that includes kids when they call them, I think all the way to 24 years old. where they give them 20, what is it, 200 hours, and they can be placed at different businesses, even the city, whoever. You just apply, and then they send you people to help. I know sometimes the events we do downtown, some committees don't have a lot of help, so, I mean, it's a free, you know, it's free help. It's through the workforce connection.

Earlier.

No, actually, they have one here.

They have one here. United? Yeah.

And they came to one of the mixers and they said, hey, if you guys need help, let us know. We can hire those kids and, you know, come and learn some kind of trade or help out or whatever, you know. So that would be great if anybody's interested.

Quick question for you, Director. Other financing sources on page 13, that went from $1 million to $2.2. Is that special revenue?

So those are incorporating all the transfers in?

All the transfers in from the measure.

From different measure. The measure S. Correct, all the transfers then go into that as other finances sources.

Okay.

Okay, going on to the next slide is our desk service funds. This is our last slide. And this is just a picture of where we are in a debt service. We have a total of six bonds, actually debt. And the only one that comes out of the general fund obligation for the principal and interest is our bond 2015. Other than that, the rest are coming out of the debt service fund in the 3000 series. And it's on page 12 of your budget book. Also detailed listed on page 116. Any questions on debt service?

Yeah, on that, on the obligation fund. Okay, up there, what is the longest obligation fund? What year will be done with one of them?

That looks like the, yeah, the lease revenue bonds is matured in 2049. 2049. Mm-hmm. That's the wastewater infrastructure project, 2024 lease bond.

Then the pension obligation bond. It looks like the obligation is less this year, 606. You mentioned that is CalPERS changing their interest rate on the pension? You said our pension liability went up this year.

So the pension liability is driven by PERS. I guess there's a bill that's going out that's moving forward that's going to change the pension structure for PEPRA. And that's the expenses that the employee pays going forward.

It's going to increase benefits? It's PEPRA for... I think law enforcement. And so it's kind of resetting that to classic standards. So it would increase the amount of PERS to agencies.

They're going to bill us for it. They're going to make the decision. They're going to bill all the cities for it and the counties.

Right. League of California Cities currently is currently against it. Opposing it. Yes.

in that built in that potential increase to the pension liability of the city to change that around. Not yet. It's not built in on there because it hasn't passed and we don't know what that impact is yet. And the pension obligation bond is what it is smoothed out the, the amount due on the pension every year.

So the pension obligation bond that matures in 2043, our payments for principal interest average 900,000 a year. for principal and interest. So this year is I think 917,000 and is allocated to each department and expense through each division to pay back the POB.

That 917 will go up potentially significantly if This passes if CalPERS changes back to classic for safety?

The bond is separate since we already have the bond.

No, no, I just mean the obligation. Oh, the obligation. The overall obligation under our pension liability. Yes. That is correct. Can it be added to the pension obligation bond? No.

You have to go back and read the bonus.

That is what it is. That was based upon what was due at that time. 4%. Yeah, it wasn't that different before they changed their, you know, allocations.

So it's moving forward. We'll see what happens. It's SB 1383, I believe it is.

What's the interest rate they're charging this year, the discount rate for CalPERS?

So the discount rate, I'm not sure. I just, I can get that for you. But the one that we have now for the pension obligation is 4.3% for paying back the bond. Okay.

And anything on top of that, we pay the CalPERS rate after the bond was put in place.

Correct. Yeah. We make payments on that every year.

And with that, we come to the end of the presentation. I did take some notes while we were going through that. We had some, at least one reduction, 25K to the attorney costs. And we increased some alive to 5K from 3K. So right now that's putting us at $23,000. on top on top additionally i have a note in here but there was nothing um no consensus at the time that i got and i should have asked i apologize i think there was but i just want to confirm uh there was discussion about the agenda management software um and whether that was needed or not um And so do we want to fund that, keep that in, see what that cost is, or reallocate it now?

I don't think we have anything to reallocate it to at this point, but we might change by the second meeting. Our next budget finalization is going to be the second meeting in June.

Yeah, so what we'll do is we'll take any changes that are here tonight, incorporate them into the final budget for approval at our second meeting in June. And then if there's changes on that, hopefully not. We want to try to get those changes right now so that way we can do that and present a nice final budget to council.

Sounds good. So I think council members will just kind of think about this.

Yeah, we'll think about this. And also in the management software. Give us more update on this software.

And thanks to all the department heads for coming out tonight, sticking with this, coming up with bare bones numbers. We really appreciate that. It's a tough year, but we'll all pull together. We'll make it better than ever. And, you know, we'll keep doing what we have to do for our citizens and our city that we love so much. So thank you again for everything that you guys do. Appreciate it.

Yeah. And I just really want to thank our executive team and our city staff for It was a team effort working on this, not only with our executives, but their staff as well, getting input in from a lot of the departments and staff. So thank you to everyone. I appreciate all the hard work that was done on this.

Thanks, everybody. With that, we will take any public comment at the end. Does anybody have any public comment? Anybody on the phone or on the line with public comment before we adjourn? Mayor Hersey, no hands raised. Great. Thank you. This meeting is adjourned.