City Council - Regular Meeting

Conduct in the city council chambers. Rules of decorum for the public. Members of the audience shall not engage in disorderly or boisterous conduct, including the utterance of loud, threatening, or abusive language, clapping, whistling, stamping of feet, or other acts which disturb, disrupt, impede, or otherwise render the orderly conduct of the city meeting infeasible. A member of the audience engaging in any such conduct shall, at the discretion of the presiding officer or a majority of the City Council, be subject to ejection from the meeting per Government Code Section 54954.3c. Removal from the Council Chambers. Any person who commits the following acts in respect to a meeting of the City shall be removed from the Council Chambers per Government Code Section 54954.3c. A disorderly, contemptuous, or insolent behavior towards the city council or any member thereof, tending to interrupt the due and orderly course of said meeting. A breach of peace, boisterous conduct, or a violent disturbance, tending to interrupt the due and orderly course of said meeting. Disobedience of any lawful order from the mayor, which shall include an order to be seated or to refrain from addressing the City Council, and any other unlawful interference with the due and orderly course of said meeting. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Taft City Council Successor Agency Joint Regularly Scheduled Meeting for Tuesday, June 16, 2026. City of Taft Council meetings are being held in person with full capacity seating and are live streamed at www.youtube.com forward slash user forward slash City of Taft. Public comment can be made in person and also can be received per the following. Written comments may be dropped off in the drop box in front of City Hall. Comments may be emailed to the City Clerk at cityclerk at cityoftaft.org. They may also be made by phone to the City Clerk's office at 661-763-1222. Public comments will be accepted up until 5 p.m. the day of the meeting and all comments received shall be read into the records. We're going to begin this evening's meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, led by myself, followed by the invocation from Greg Mudge. If you would all please stand and join us. And over your heart, salute and pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic

Pray with me, please. Father in heaven, we're so thankful for this opportunity and the opportunity to serve the members of this community. We're so thankful for the leadership that you've provided. And Father, at this time in our history, we're celebrating our country's birth 250 years ago. And Father, we pray that the leadership of our community here watch over us to make sure that this is a safe celebration that we celebrate in a way that truly lets us count the blessings of this country and in particular the blessing of our community. We pray that our leadership will guide us and direct us and maintain a safe community during this time of celebration. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you very much.

Madam Clerk, may we have a roll call, please?

Mayor North?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Bryant? Here. Council Member Cryer?

Here.

Council Member Waldrop?

Here.

And Council Member Travera absent with notice.

All right. Thank you very much. First item on this evening's agenda is the swearing in of a new officer, David Lawson. So we have the backup CO coming up here, if you would be so kind, LT.

Yes, sir. Good evening. I'd like to introduce David Lawson. He comes to us with a tremendous law enforcement background and has been gracious enough to join us as a reserve police officer.

Welcome.

If I can introduce, David's got 14 years of law enforcement experience at the Sheriff's Department with both detentions and in the patrol division and currently serves as a district administrator for a Bakersfield area school. at minimum, would say we are blessed to have David serving for free.

Doesn't sound like he has a great deal of free time, but we're glad for anything you have, David.

Yes, thank you. So we'll do it this time. We'll administer the oath, and then we'll do a badge presentation. All right, Dave. If you would raise your right hand and repeat after me, I state your name. I, David Lawson. Do solemnly swear to affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution.

Do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution. Of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California. Of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.

And I will bear true faith to the allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the State of California.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

That I take this obligation freely.

And that I take this obligation freely. Without any mental reservation or purpose. Without any mental reservation or purpose. Of evasion. Of evasion. Sorry.

And that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties.

And that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties. Upon which I'm about to enter. Upon which I'm about to enter. Very good. Welcome aboard, sir. Thank you.

And if I can present the badge as a police officer for the city of Taft.

All right. Wear that proudly. Yes.

You got it?

Can I say something real quick? Yeah, please. All right. Mayor, City Council, I just want to say thank you for your support for this department and the men and women that serve this community every day. I want to thank you to Chief McMahon and Lieutenant Brian McClure here. since day one, they've been very welcoming professional. Uh, everyone at the tap police department has welcomed me with open arms and treating me as one of their own from day one. So it's something I really appreciate. Uh, it's an honor to wear this badge and it's going to be an honor to serve this community. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, David. Now, David, do you have your family back there? Am I looking at your family? You know what I want you all to know? That in the city of Taft, we are huge supporters, and we respect and appreciate law enforcement. We don't buy in a lot of that garbage you see in the big cities. We want a safe, respectful, legal community. So your family member, David, I'm guessing dad and husband, is welcome to be a part of us, and we'll have the full support of this council, along with the other officers as well. So thanks for being a part of our team. Thank you very much.

Thank you, gentlemen.

All right. Thank you. All right. Next up, item number two, presentation by Sharon Rabon with Price Page Company, 2026-2027 budget. City Manager Jones.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to introduce Sharon. She will be presenting via teleconference to the council. And we also have our previous finance director on as well, in case we don't know an answer to the question.

OK. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, should I, should I begin?

Yes, please.

Okay. Uh, thank you so much for having me here tonight. Uh, my name is Sharon. I'm from price page, uh, CPA firm. We are, um, working with the city's finance department, um, on many different, uh, projects. And, uh, tonight I'm going to be presenting the fiscal year 26, 27 city budget, um, which was prepared by city staff. We are assisting staff with a transition to, again, further assist with other financial operations moving forward. And as part of that transition, I'm assisting to present the budget. So I have a slideshow here. I'm going to get started. Oops. So in regards to the budget, I have several slides, but I'm going to begin with mentioning that we're going to be talking about the general fund. The city has many funds with which it operates its finances, but I'm going to start talking about the general fund. The general fund has a lot of responsibilities and is a primary financing source for many of the city's departments. It primarily derives revenues from property taxes and sales taxes amongst others, other types of revenues such as charges for services. And just very briefly, I'm gonna mention that The general fund, amongst its various types of expenditures, is responsible for covering the cost of 15 different departments. So that would include the city clerk, administration, finance, HR, et cetera. As part of these various departments, there are personnel expenses, there are other operational expenses that are non-personnel type of expenses, there are capital purchases and capital projects. The preparation of the budget for those who may not know, I went and looked on the city's municipal code. The finance department is responsible for assisting the city manager in the preparation of the annual budget and administration thereof. So I just thought I would add that in just to show everyone that the authority is coming from the municipal code of the city. With this budget and with any other budget, the budget presented strives to, first of all, maintain core general fund services while monitoring and addressing fund specific challenges. The budget also strives to implement financial discipline techniques and strengthen long term financial sustainability. It also targets visible community priorities such as streets, sidewalks, park facilities, and engagement. Another thing I wanted to mention before getting into some more details about the various revenues and expenditures presented, I want to remind everybody that budgeting best practices include conservatively estimating revenues conservatively projecting expenditures, and understanding the current economic and regulatory environment. All of these things affect what actually goes into the budget and what gets estimated for revenues and expenditures. So as I mentioned before, the general fund is the city's principal financing center for the following departments. There are city council, city clerk, city administration, city attorney, personnel, risk management, financial services, police, Cal, MMET, animal control, fire department, planning and building, engineering and public works. Within the budget that's up for proposed for adoption tonight for fiscal year 26-27, the general fund has budgeted and estimated approximately 9.4 million in revenues and $9.4 million in expenditures. On this slide, I have a pie chart, which is a pie chart showing what the breakdown of expenditures are by activity in the general fund. So the most, the primary, or the greatest amount of expenditures that the general fund will plan to expend during fiscal year 26-27 is for police services. 30.9 million, which is 42% of all expenses from the general fund. The next highest amount of expenditures is almost a tie between public works and fire department services, which are approximately 14% of the general fund budget. There are also general government-type expenditures, which are city council, city manager, administration, IT, personnel, and risk management. There's also, as we mentioned earlier, financial services and community development, and also some capital purchases are also planned for fiscal year 26-27. And I'm going to get into some of those in a later slide. Some budgetary highlights that I want to discuss as part of this budget in addition to the economic environment that should be highlighted. First of all, it should be noted that CalPERS unfunded liability costs are increasing. So those are costs related to pensions. In addition to that, fuel costs, it should be also noted that fuel costs are volatile. Recently they have been high, but there are so many factors that go into what the fuel costs are going to be. But that is something to think about, about the current economic environment. They could increase further or they could decrease. And we will continue to monitor and be mindful of those as the year progresses and we'll propose any adjustments as necessary. In addition to that, another budgetary highlight to note is that training initiatives and costs are increasing as well during fiscal year 26-27. It is also important to note that there are retirements of long-term employees, which could trigger vacation and sick leave payouts. So these are just some budgetary highlights about this budget and part of the economic environment that I wanted to highlight for the presentation. While reviewing the budget, there were other budgetary expenditure highlights that were noted. And I have noted some of those by department. And I'm going to read some of those off to you. In regards to the planning department, it was noted that salary expenses declined between the fiscal year 26 budget to project the fiscal year 27 budget. That was due to the director of community development and planning position being removed, which led to a decline in cost of approximately $102,000. But the cost of professional services for civil engineer have increased. In regards to HR and risk management, the liability insurance was budgeted this year for fiscal year 27 to have a large spike in cost. So there is going to be an increase budgeted for that. In regards to the police department, salary costs are increasing for fiscal year 27. And in addition to salary costs, there are capital outlay costs for fiscal year 27 related to vehicles, which is approximately $80,000, computer equipment of $55,000, building improvements for $50,000, and radio repeater for $20,000. So these are all capital outlay costs, pieces of equipment and improvements to the building that are being planned for fiscal year 27. In addition to those departments, I've also noted that the code enforcement department has professional service costs declining for fiscal year 27. The engineering department has salary costs that for fiscal year 27 are more reflective of having a higher dependence on administrative staff assistance than they were in prior years. And for the streets department, the capital outlay for that includes approximately 500,000 for annual street repairs and maintenance. Further, for the community correctional facility, again, salary costs are more reflective of increases in the city management and administrative involvement and oversight than they were in prior years. And the capital outlay costs planned for this component of the city is, well, the total capital outlay costs are approximately 326,000, and that includes $143,000 planned for computer software costs. In addition to that, the federal wastewater treatment plant has expenditures budgeted for utilities and insurance for approximately $80,000, but no budget revenue. And the refuse fund has capital expenditures, which include vehicle purchases of approximately $450,000. So we talked about expenditures. Now let's talk about the revenues. All of these expenditures And what we had talked about primarily were general fund expenditures, but we also touched upon other fund expenditures as well. But mainly for general fund expenditures, the key revenue sources to finance these expenditures are property taxes, sales and use taxes, charges to other funds like the correctional facility fund. There are state sources such as property tax in lieu of motor vehicle license fee. and gas taxes, and there's also interest in rental revenue. So on this slide, I have a pie chart of revenue. You hopefully can see the slide clearly. I'm sorry if there's some small print. But the highest amount of revenue coming in is coming from transfers into the general fund from other funds. So there are other sources of revenue such as gas tax and sales taxes that are not directly tracked in the general fund but are tracked separately in other funds, but those funds make contributions and have their revenues being transferred into the general fund. So that really, as you can see, it's 36%, this dark orange slice of the pie. That's a major contributor to the revenue. There is also total current charges in light orange at the bottom, 15%. Those are charges to other funds that are using and are gaining the benefit of general fund internal services. So those are funds like the correctional facility. any other enterprise funds. In addition to that, at 19%, we have sales and use taxes and other taxes. That makes up 19% of the revenues coming in. That's approximately $1.7 million. And there are many different types of revenues coming in. As you can see, there are some that are a state-initiated like gas tax or sales tax that the revenue comes directly from the state but is based off of resident or the behavior of the populate, the spending behavior of the population for gas usage and sales. So things like that, revenues like that can also at times become volatile depending on the behavior of the population and spending habits. So that's just something to keep in mind. I'll mention one more. At 12%, there's a type of revenue called state highway motor vehicle. There's an in lieu payment for that. That's also coming from the state. And actually what I've mainly just said is really about taxes and revenues coming from the state. The city also does charges for services when it provides services to the public. There are certain service types that the city will actually charge a service fee to the user. So all those types of revenues are gathered into the general fund. to finance the various expenditures of the various departments. On this slide, there's a summary of the revenue that was projected for fiscal year 26. So the slide before this was about fiscal year 27. I believe as part of the title of the agenda item, It also includes fiscal year 26 ending projected revenue within the agenda and staff report. So that's why we've included a slide about fiscal year 26 revenues. So if you remember from the previous slide, hopefully, it was mentioned that The total revenue for fiscal year 27 was, I believe, 9.3 or 4 million. Hopefully, I'm not misstating that. For fiscal year 26, it was very close to what it's projected to be for fiscal year 27. In fiscal year 26, it's almost 9.2 million. So for fiscal year 27, it's going to have a slight increase in the revenue projection to what it was for fiscal year 26. So over here on this slide, I have a breakdown of the fiscal year 26 projected revenue. Again, you could see on this slide that sales taxes make up a big slice of the pie. There's also property taxes and another large percentage is coming from current charges. So these are charges to other funds that are using the internal services of the general fund that the general fund is covering, and other funds are contributing their share to help support the general fund. Even though it's not as large of a revenue, I also wanted to mention that interest and rental income have been considered and included as part of the revenue. We had just saw the fiscal year 26 summary of revenues. This is the fiscal year 27 summary of revenues. It's very close to the fiscal year 26. It's slightly increased to almost 9.4 million, but there are slight increases in some of the various components of the revenue, but overall not too far off from fiscal year 26. On this slide, we have a comparison for the general fund operating expenditures for the plan expenditures for the comparison between fiscal year 26 and what's proposed for fiscal year 27. And this is broken down by department. So as you can see at the bottom, similarly to the revenues, the total amount of expenditures that are proposed for fiscal year 27 are not very far off from fiscal year 26. It's a slight increase. You may recall from the earlier slides I was mentioning some of the budgetary highlights by department of some increases, some things have increased, some things have decreased in the fiscal year 27 budget. I mentioned in some departments there were some salary increases. And this is visible here when you compare between fiscal year 26 and 27. There are some departments, like the police department, like I mentioned before, had an increase in salaries. There were other departments that had decreases in costs. But overall, the fiscal year 27 budget is only about $57,000, approximately $57,000 increased in planned expenditures from fiscal year 26. I briefly mentioned this before, but I just have this slide to display what are the capital purchases that are planned for fiscal year 27. For the finance department, there's $30,000 plan for computer maintenance. For the police department, $80,000 for vehicles, $55,000 for computer maintenance, $50,000 for building maintenance, $20,000 for radio repeater. For the street department, there's about $50,000 for striping and $500,000 for annual street repairs. So this is another slide. I apologize if they're a small print. I hope that everybody can see, but regardless, I'm gonna read off some of these components of this pie. These are, let me just make sure everybody can see. These are projected revenues by fund. So previously, the pie chart that we looked at was only focused on the general fund. This pie chart shows the general fund in comparison to other funds in the city. So for all the revenues coming into the city, the general fund, which is this light blue shaded piece of the pie, 28%, so the revenues coming into the city, 28% of them are from the general fund. Over here, this dark turquoise color, 37% coming in from the correctional facility. So 30% of revenues coming in from there. Another high percentage or somewhat high percentage of revenues coming in is this red piece right here, Measure A. That's 6% of total city revenues. There's other smaller contributors to revenue, such as the sewer fund at 4%, the refuse fund right here in purple at 5%. Transit fund, 4%. There's the wastewater treatment plant at 5%. There's also TDA at 4%. And those are really, really the, the majority of the revenues coming in. There are some smaller revenues coming in such as gas tax, crime prevention, traffic safety, and central garage. Oh, and also a small component coming in from inmate welfare fund. So on this slide over here, Again, broken out by the various funds of the city, but these are the projected expenditures by fund for fiscal year 26-27. This is comparable, as you will see, to the breakdown of revenues by fund because the biggest contributors, as we saw in the last slide, to the total revenues were the general fund and the correctional facility. And similarly here, those same two funds are the biggest contributors to the expenditures. So the general fund, again, here in light blue, is contributing to 29% of the expenditures. The correctional facility is about 37% here in the teal color right here. The sewer fund is about 5%. Refuse fund, 5%. Measure A, about 7%. of total city expenditures. And again, this is very comparable to the allocation of revenue that's coming in as well. That concludes the presentation. Thank you to city staff. Thank you to the city manager and to Theresa for the preparation of the budget. I'm very happy to work with you and work with everybody. And I look forward to continuing to work with everybody. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. So I'm sure we're going to have some questions for you. So I'll tell you what, Mayor Pro Tem is on the Finance Committee, and I know he's busy over here in spite of the fact that we reviewed this budget in depth before we reported.

And a lot of work went into this budget by Teresa. Most of your questions may be best suited for Teresa, since she is on standby to answer those questions.

Teresa, you're coming to us from Louisiana. Is that not correct?

No, Texas. Still in Texas.

Teresa plans on being at her home on the 22nd. I hope you make it, Teresa. OK, well, welcome. Thanks for tuning in from Texas. OK, so let's get started.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, I will say thank you to the city manager for helping clarify a couple things. The way it's presented in the presentation, not incorrect, just slightly different from what we saw at the finance committee meeting. So he helped clarify. Teresa, confirm if I'm correct or not, but net of capital expenditures, we are at an operating surplus of roughly $450,000. Is that correct?

I believe that is correct, yes.

Okay. The big thing there this year, based on what we're seeing, is the projected payment of TDA claims of some $750,000. That's kind of a one-time thing. You would see smaller amounts in future years ongoing, but at worst, we're about flat, maybe slightly at a deficit. hundred thousand dollars or so. And even then we're only seeing less than two thirds of 1% growth in our expenditures budget. So that's unheard of. I mean, especially with all the other costs we've got going up, uh, we're doing a dang good job of kind of managing those, uh, especially as inflation is going through the roof. Um, one of the things that I just want to clarify is folks may not understand this, but on the pie chart, I believe, I wish I had a page number here, but it's the big one that showed the big orange piece. So the one that Sharon kind of alluded to was the large. There you go.

Did you want the general fund?

If you would scroll up, it's about four slides up right there. So what doesn't necessarily show here, because it shows in the transfers, and you alluded to that being a large component of our budget, embedded in that, about two-thirds of that, about $2 million is the local sales tax measure. So overall, I was just kind of doing some quick math, but a lot of folks out there think that property taxes are really what comes to the city, and that's what drives operations. At this level of municipal government, that's one-tenth of everything we get. That's four times smaller than than what we're seeing through sales tax, whether it's the statewide sales tax or local measures. So I just wanted to make sure that we pointed that out, that yeah, it shows about $3.3 million there, but roughly $2 million of that is coming in from the sales tax revenue devised from measure A. And combining that with our typical SALES TAX ALLOCATION FROM THE STATE, IT'S ROUGHLY 40% OF OUR BUDGET. SO BUYING LOCAL HELPS. SALES TAX THAT COMES TO THE CITY IS REALLY WHAT DRIVES THE WHEELS HERE OUTSIDE OF OPERATIONAL SERVICES DAY TO DAY. BUT I WILL SAY THAT IT WAS REALLY THE ONLY QUESTION I HAD, AND CRAIG, THANK YOU FOR KIND OF HELPING ME MAKE SURE I WASN'T MISSING IT ON THE FLY. It made me, that's why I was texting you. It scared me too.

Those words, transfer in, make your skin crawl, oftentimes. Yes.

So, Mr. Mayor, that's all I have. I apologize, but thank you all for helping clarify that.

Well, no, thank you very much. And having that discussion to bring it up really helps. I do have a question, and it's for Lon, because I believe in the presentation we talked about a large increase in the general liability rate

Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor. In regards to the liability, those are projections that are projected high by the RMA in March numbers. The final numbers will be given out the fourth Friday of June. I will have that approximately the 25th of June be able to give to you guys for revised numbers.

Okay. So everybody out there in TV land knows that there are things we simply cannot change. We have to react to it. Being reactionary is an unfortunate operational necessity in state government, but we don't set workers' comp rates. We don't set general liability rates. You're talking about increased debt service to CalPERS because of the unfunded liability. All those things are outside of our control. So we find ourselves trying to deal with those eventualities. Sometimes we get pleasant surprises, but After all, this is state government. State government this year is looking at approximately $30 billion whole, no matter what your governor says, according to the LAO. And that's forecast through 2030, if I'm not mistaken. But what we do here at the local level There are things we can impact, and that's expenditures and efficiencies. And staff has done a fabulous job as far as exercising fiscal restraint through gains in efficiencies. That is something that we can do. And, boy, we've been picking that little hanging fruit for a while. So I want to give a big shout-out to and thank you to everybody. Not sure where that background noise is coming from. But anyway. Just so everybody knows out there, there are things we cannot control, so we have to work that much harder to control and create those efficiencies within our capabilities. So thank you, Lana. Appreciate that. Councilman Cryer, do you have any comments, any questions, sir? Thank you, Mayor.

Here's a couple of questions and stuff, but one thing, you know, the expenditures in from our, is that coming from the reserves into the budget?

Well, no, that's what we were just talking about. No, you mentioned some, there's two of them I saw.

So when, Craig, remind me if I'm wrong, but the detail of the budget, was that produced with the agenda packet? Yeah. Okay. So one thing you'll see, Orsel, and for everybody who happens to look out there, front page, you'll see a... NOTATION THAT SAYS TRANSFERS IN. THERE'S PROBABLY 8 TO 10 DIFFERENT DESIGNATIONS OF DIFFERENT FUNDS WHERE FUNDS CAN COME INTO THE BUDGET. PAGE 29. NEAR THE BOTTOM RIGHT, ABOUT $262,000 IS COMING IN FROM THE GENERAL FUND OR CAPITAL RESERVE, WHICHEVER ONE YOU WANT TO CALL IT, TO HELP SUBSIDIZE THE BUDGET, WHICH INCLUDES ROUGHLY $780,000 WORTH OF CAPITAL EXPENDITURES. So if you were to maybe back out that expenditure, you would no longer need the transfer in, and you would be left with a surplus of roughly $450,000.

The majority of that capital outlays per street.

Correct. About two-thirds, or more than that, $500,000. But yes, Warshall, to your point, those are coming from some fund or some reserve. The largest portion is coming from sales tax, the Measure A numbers, just over $2 million, and then about $262,000 from capital reserves. Okay.

Um, I just want to thank the, our stakeholder decisions of a TAF for passing that 1% sales. Amen. Without that 1%, we'll be in big duty. 20% of our budget. Yeah. When you think about public safety costs, absolutely. Not having a proper fire department would take up more part of our budget. we wouldn't have the best police department that we could ever have going on right now because it would really impact the budget tremendously. I just have a question on crime prevention. How's that making money? I saw here making 3%.

So the crime prevention money, Orchal, is We get money from the county to assist with the community service officer. There's an annual grant amount of $100,000 plus. There's an excess that we get, and it's divided amongst the cities. And that's to help assist with our CSO, paying for a CSO officer. That's what we choose to use it for.

It's an allocation.

There was a question there, and then... There's one other here. I can say that Measure A was a big help. I just can't thank the citizens here for doing that. But another question is, I know it's a small amount and stuff. Are we adding another repeater, or is that just a fee we pay every year, the $20,000 for the repeaters for the police department?

I think it's a replacement of the existing repeater, right? Well, the repeater that we're using was a...

I'm not quite sure they, they requested it is. Lieutenant McClure, maybe he could shed a light. It might be an additional work that they need because the, the police department did remove our. They needed additional work on that.

I'm just nitpicking on that.

It's equipment necessary to finish the project. I believe we had to go between a generator, our solar battery backup power, and I know the chief's been working on that, so he put that in the budget for whatever he had planned to make that happen.

I know we have one, too, at the museum. We have a repeater, not a repeater, but a... Up on top of the bender rig. Yeah.

Yeah, that goes to our surveillance cameras. It kind of bounces the signal off.

We're utilizing everything at our disposal pretty much. Absolutely. And the other thing I was kind of surprised on, on the projection for our prison, so we thought we were going to see a 30% increase, or is that part of the budget we'll be getting from our CCF with the... I'm not sure what page it is. I'm like Joss here trying to find what number it was. It was projected income from the modified committee would be on minus 37%. I see. 37. That would be right here, Mayor.

The unfortunate part is the revenues are kind of presented as a negative number. Maybe through here. So all those are going to show like a negative percent. I think it's just saying it's 37% of the total. Is that correct, Teresa?

Coming from that to us, it's generating right now. Yes.

I believe that's what it is.

Sharon prepared that. Do you want me to go to the slide for revenues or expenditures?

I think he's looking at expenditures. Upper right-hand corner, say expenditures for 26-27. Right. Yeah, it's the expenditures. I'm sorry.

Okay.

The pie chart that has the... Those two look the same, don't they? It's near the bottom.

Oh, okay.

So it should be the second one. There you go.

Okay, this one's the revenues. This one's positive. This one's the expenditures. There you go. It's negative.

We're slowly getting the CCF going, and it's a slow process. But hopefully it'll be a good asset for us. But... I know a lot of work went into it, like Josh was saying, and the mayor was saying. A lot of work went into this deal. It's not easy. It's not simple. I know they had a lot of meetings concerning all this, and this is the best we can do, and we're still in the black. That's the main thing. We're operating in the black, and we don't have much of a wiggle room. That's all I have to say, Mayor. It's kind of tight.

That's true. All right. Thank you very much. Councilman Waldrop, do you have any comments or questions?

A lot of my questions have been answered, but a lot of people don't realize of all the hard work that goes into this budget income outgo, it can be mind-boggling. My hat's off to those people. Thank you.

Just so everybody knows, and this is a live document, all right? These are projections. estimates. We don't know about increases for general liability, workers' comp, debt service. On the revenue side, there are things that we're working very, very hard on to try to get them. However, these are conservative estimates, so if those things don't pan out, we're not counting on them. And within the budget, there's some flexibility. If everything comes up roses, then we'll have a larger surplus, and perhaps some capital expenditures that have been deferred can be taken care of. So that's all a part of the budget process. But it takes an entire team of people not only to put the budget together, but to operate through the course of the year. So, yes, an absolute thank you to everybody involved in that. Teresa, thanks for staying with us. You're almost two-thirds of the way across the United States.

You're welcome. Not a problem.

All right. Is there any other discussion or questions, gentlemen, regarding the budget? None here. All right. Thank you, Sharon. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Okay. That being the case, then we'll move on to item number three, which is the approval of the final budget for fiscal year 2025-2026, a proposed budget for fiscal year 2026-2027. City Manager Joan.

Thank you, Mayor. Attached here to is the final operating capital expenditure budgets for fiscal year 2025-2026 and the proposed operating capital expenditure budgets for fiscal year 2026-2027. These budgets maintain the conservative fiscal policies of the City Council. These budgets were reviewed by the Finance Committee on June 1st, 2026 and were recommended to be presented to the Council for adoption. The budgets with respect to certain grant funds, which are multi-year agreed upon amounts for specific activities to be performed in accordance with contract agreements and state and federal agencies ARE CONTROLLED BY GUIDELINES, LAWS, AND REGULATIONS OF THE GRANT AGREEMENTS. HENCE, THESE ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THE ATTACHED BUDGET.

ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU, CITY MANAGER JONES. AT THIS TIME, I WOULD ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO ADOPT A RESOLUTION ENTITLED A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF TAPT ADOPTING THE CITY OF TAPT FINAL BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2025-2026 AND A PROPOSED BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2026-2027. MOTION SECOND. Have a motion and a second. All right. You made the motion, sir. Any additional discussion? None. None here, sir. Thank you. All right. Madam Clerk, we have a motion and a second. May we have a roll call, please?

Council Member Cryer?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Bryant?

Yes.

Council Member Waldrop?

Yes.

Mayor North?

Yes. That passes on a 4-0 vote. Thank you all. And thank everybody who was involved in that process. All right, next up, item number four, citizens request public comments. Do we have any? None. That saved that entire paragraph. Thank you very much. Item number five, council statements not action. Councilman Cryer, begin with you, sir. Thank you, Mayor, again.

Last council meeting, we had a discussion about buses for our transit system, and there's been people here saying things a little bit negative about buses. while we voted yes for it and some of our heroes and stuff. But we didn't have a choice in the matter. If we didn't pass it, our transit system would have been shut down. We would not have it no more. Sacramento put the gun at our head or twisted our arm, however you want to say it, that we had and forced to do it. Would we have a choice? We all would have voted no for it, but we didn't want to have what we wanted to do to have our citizens suffer that rely on our transportation system. So that is a reason why we had a split council on other two bus vote, because it's not good for TAF what's going on, but were forced to do it. And our buses we have, the gas-powered buses or natural gas-powered buses, they're the best. But electric, it's just not quite there yet. But we had to vote the way we did. That's all I had to say on that, Mayor. And another thing, too, is that we have a 4th of July coming up. And the Chamber's putting on some good programs. And plus, other community ORGANIZATIONS ARE PUTTING UP ACTIVITIES FOR JULY 4TH. A LOT OF THINGS FOR EVERYBODY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF, ESPECIALLY THE YOUNG FOLKS. THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE A LOT OF STUFF OUT THERE GOING ON THAT WILL KEEP THEM BUSY, YOU KNOW, THE CAR SHOWS ON FRIDAY, THE STUFF ON RELTA TRAILS, THE ROADS WILL BE BLOCKED OFF FOR SAFETY REASONS, THE KIDS CAN RUN AROUND AND ENJOY THEIR SPECIAL DAY, THE BARBECUES, THE FIREWORKS, ALL THAT'S GOING ON. and partake in it and enjoy it. This is our 250th year anniversary of our great country being founded on. And I know our mayor here, he's a big proponent on anything patriotic. You can see what shirt he's wearing, he has on. All the council members are very patriotic. Our whole city here, we all, what was best for our great country. We want to help everybody celebrate it safely. Don't do anything stupid to catch a house on fire or get yourself hurt or injured. And another thing, too, school's out. It's probably my last reminder until school comes back in, but just be careful of the kids out there and across rocks. People are learning how to drive vehicles. Watch out for vandalism. Because kids sometimes get bored and stuff because sometimes you can't get work permits like you used to when we were younger at one time. And so just keep an eye on things. And this is a time where, not because of the children, But there's a lot of vandalism going on from adults that should know better, out there watching for houses. People are taking vacations. When people take vacations, they notice it with newspapers being stacked up in front of their houses, or people getting on Facebook and stuff, advertising where they're at and how long they'll be gone and where they're going. And criminals, they watch out for that stuff. They look at that. Just be careful when you do it and how you do it because you don't want to come back home and have a nasty surprise. But I just want to thank the people here in Taft for giving us all the support you have, especially during Prop A, Proposition A for our city for the extra 1% sales tax. That's actually a gift for all of us to enjoy because we sure need our police department. We definitely need our fire department. They work hand-to-hand and make our city a safe and wonderful place to live in. That's all I have to say, Mayor.

All right. Thank you very much. Well, that was quite a bit. That was a mouthful. All well said. Thank you. Councilman Waldrop.

I have three things. Number one, like Councilman Cryer said, I'm really proud of the city of Taft for that 1% tax. It really makes a difference. Number two, I want it to be known, and I'm sure most people would say the same thing. I'm proud to be an American citizen. And number three, I'm proud to be a citizen of Taft. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem. That's a tough act to follow.

I just say ditto to what Councilman Waldrop said, but excuse me, Councilman Cryer said it as well. A lot of folks are putting in a lot of time and effort to do something for everyone. We'll get even more out of that if some folks would be willing to, hey, what can I do? How can I help? Whether it's spending five minutes donating $10, $15 or offering your services, some of your time, talent, treasure, whatever you got, it will only be better because of it and you'll only enjoy it more because of it. So my encouragement to folks is get involved. You get what you put in, and I promise you, you get far more than what you put in. I'm looking forward to the celebration of Independence Day. It's one of my favorite holidays because once in the summer, too, because it's in the summer, you can hang out in the pool. And then in the afternoons and evenings, you get to celebrate with family with some food and maybe even a little bit of festivities. Otherwise, I'll leave that up to folks to decide what festivities look like to them. But happy birthday, America. Looking forward to the next 250 years after I'm long gone. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. Well, it looks like it's unanimous. We're all glad that this country is still standing. We've been here for 250 years and we're going to be here for a whole bunch more. But as one president once said, we are one generation away from losing our freedom. Do not take that for granted. Elections have consequences. Take a hard look at the way things are. And if you're happy with the way things are, whether it's because of the cost of goods or the cost of fuel or vagrancy issues or drug abuse or whatever the case may be, then I guess continue to vote the way you have. If you are not, take a hard look at who's responsible. Educate yourself. It's interesting, we have an item on the agenda whereby the state is requiring that we comply with the state's orders to encourage people to become a part and become involved in local government. For those of you who haven't watched this, I cannot tell you How many times I've reminded everybody out there that this is your city. This is your government. Be a part of your government. We all here, we're just citizens just like you, who happen to be elected and up here representing, and you could do it just as surely as we do. But no matter what level you're involved in the community, and that's what Mayor Pro Tem Bryant was just alluding to, no matter what level you're involved, volunteering for kids sports or whatever the case, social clubs, Get involved. Be a part of it. And keep an eye on your neighbors. So happy birthday, America. And everybody stay safe. Have a great time. That's all I have. Thank you. Next up, item number six would be department reports. Do we have department reports this evening? Seeing none, item seven, city manager statement. City Manager Jones.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to thank Teresa. STICKING AROUND AND HELPING US THROUGH OUR BUDGET PROCESS BEYOND HER ANTICIPATED RETIREMENT. IT REALLY HELPED. IT'S NOT A GOOD TIME OF YEAR TO BE TRANSITIONING TO NEW FOLKS. I WANT TO THANK SHARON FOR PRESENTING TONIGHT. AND I WANT TO THANK THE EMPLOYEES FOR REALLY HELPING THE CITY THROUGH ANOTHER YEAR ON A TIGHT BUDGET. IT'S TOUGH. to continue to provide the same level of service to the community and do it without spending as much money. So a lot of that goes to a lot of our employees that consistently keep an eye on the cost of what we're buying, all the way down to sprinkler heads. Also, as a reminder, we will be dark the first meeting in July. So hope everybody can enjoy a long, well-deserved vacation. It's all right. Thank you.

Thank you very much, sir. July 6th or 7th. Excuse me. Perfect.

See attorney statements.

Thank you. All right.

Thank you very much, sir. All right. Item number nine for future agenda requests. Gentlemen, this evening. None? All right then, we'll move on to the consent calendar. Consent calendar items 10 through 15, all items listed on the consent calendar shall be considered routine and will be enacted by one roll call vote. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the city council requests specific items to be removed from the consent calendar for separate action. Any item removed from the consent calendar will be considered after the regular business items. Are there any items on the consent calendar that any member of the public would like to comment on? I don't see any hands out there, so those items are. Item number 10 are the minutes of the June 2nd, 2026 regular scheduled meeting. Item number 11, the payment of bills, some $94,650. Item number 12, landscape and lighting maintenance district number one engineers report. Recommendation here is a motion to first receive the 2026-2027 engineers report for landscape maintenance district number one and secondly, Adopt a resolution entitled, Resolution of the City Council of the City of Taft declaring its intention to review the improvements and fees for Landscape and Lighting Maintenance District No. 1 and set the public hearing for July 21, 2026 and find that the activity is not a project per the California Environmental Quality Act. CEQA is set forth in Section 15061B3 of the CEQA Guidelines. Item 13, resolution determining reasonable efforts to encourage public participation pursuant to government code section 54953.4. Recommendation here is a motion to adopt a resolution entitled resolution of the city council of the city of Taft determining reasonable efforts to encourage public participation in meetings pursuant to government code section 54953.4. Item 14 is the Commercial Waste Dump Will Serve Procedures. Recommendation is receive the informational item regarding Commercial Waste Dump Will Serve Procedures and find that the activity is not a project per the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA, as set forth in Section 15060C3 and Section 15378 of the CEQA guidelines. Item 15, the annual audited financial statements for fiscal year 2022-2023. Recommendation here is a motion to receive and file the annual audited comprehensive financial reports for the year ended June 30, 2023, and find that the activity is not a project per the Environmental Quality Act, CEQA. is set forth in section 1506 OC3 and section 15378 of the CEQA guidelines. Does any member of the council wish to remove any of these items from the consent calendar? None here. Hearing none, at this time I would entertain a motion to approve consent calendar items 10 through 15. So moved. Second. That was two ties that were moved second. That'll be fair. All right. We have a motion in a second. Madam clerk, may we have a roll call please?

Council member crier.

Yes.

Mayor pro Tem Bryant. Yes. Council member Waldrop.

Yes.

Mayor North.

Yes. And that's approved on a four Oh vote. Thank you all very much. That concludes the open session portion of this evening's meeting. This council will be going into closed session for the following items. Item A, Conference with Labor Negotiator Craig Jones City Manager, Government Code Section 54957.6, all units. Item B, Conference with Real Property Negotiator Craig Jones City Manager, Government Code Section 54956.8, undisclosed parcels. Item number C, Conference with Legal Counsel. Existing litigation, government code section 54956.9A, Taft Union High School versus the City of Taft. Kern County Superior Court case number S-1500-CV-283804. Lastly, item D, conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation, government code section 54956.9B, one undisclosed case. Thank you all for being a part of this evening's meeting. And as a brief reminder, yes, it is your government. It is your city. Be a part of it. Be safe and sane. See you after our birthday.