City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. Welcome, everybody on this side of the room. Today is Thursday, May 21st, 2026, and the time is 5 p.m. The special meeting and the following will come to order. The Victorville City Council and the same council sitting as the Victorville City Council, the Victorville Library Board of Trustees, Southern California Logistics Airport Authority, successor agency to the Redevelopment Agency, the City as a Housing Access Assessor, the Joint Power Finance Authority, and the Victorville Water District. Madam Clerk, will you kindly call the roll?

Council Member Goddard? Here. Council Member Irving?

Here.

Council Member Mora?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Harriman? Here. Mayor Becerra? Here. We have quorum.

Thank you very much. If everyone would please stand. The invocation tonight will be led by our Council Member, Ms. Goddard, and our pledge will be led by Ms. Okay.

Please bow your heads with me. Heavenly Father, we invite your presence into this place tonight. We thank you for each and every individual who you have placed in their position and you have given them giftings and talents to conduct their job duties. Lord, I pray that you would continue to have your spirit rest on us as we decide the budget tonight. that you would give us wisdom, discernment, that we would continue to run this city with transparency and honesty. And Father, I just ask that your blessings be upon the city of Victorville and that you be with every individual here tonight and every employee as they conduct their duties and go about their jobs. Father, we ask for safety and provision upon them in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Put your right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin.

back in the day. Madam Clerk, will you present the agenda and any revisions there too?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. There's no revisions to the agenda this evening.

Thank you, ma'am. At this time, my council members, any conflict of interest? No. We're good to go. Introduction to public comment. Madam Clerk, is there any request to speak?

No, Madam Mayor.

Moving right along. Our first business of order is written communications, item one, fiscal year 2026-2027 budget workshop.

Mr. Metzler, you're up. Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of the council. And welcome to the budget workshop for the 26-27 fiscal year. We do have a presentation for you, so if we can cue that up. Really quickly, you can see we're perfect. Thank you. This workshop is the first opportunity for you and members of the public to hear what staff have in mind as a revenue and expenditure plan for the upcoming fiscal year. It is also important for you and the public to know that this proposed budget relies heavily upon policy and guidance already already set in motion by the city council. Examples of that include, among other things, your adopted strategic plan and a number of your system master plans. And so tonight you're here being asked to review the materials provided to you, ask questions. And to the extent there are some minor, and to the extent there is something more or less in the proposed budget in terms of questions, staff is asking for your feedback as it's our intent to bring this back in a final version. OF THE BUDGET FOR YOUR APPROVAL AT OUR NEXT CITY COUNCIL MEETING. AND SO WITH THAT I JUST WANT TO THANK YOU AND RECOGNIZE YOU ALL FOR YOUR HARD WORK IN GETTING US TO THIS POINT. CERTAINLY YOUR POLICY AND YOUR GUIDANCE IS HUGELY IMPORTANT TO US IN THIS LARGE COLLECTIVE EFFORT. And so I'd like to also recognize the deputy city managers or my executive team, the deputy city managers, including myself. As you well know, Victorville is a fairly large and complex organization. Our executive team is responsible for guiding a total of 14 departments and helping connect them all culturally to our one united culture. Here you have our leadership team that heads up the respective departments and lead staff from their day-to-day and their efforts. They're also the ones that lead them in helping participate in this budget. I think right now would be the most appropriate time to recognize, of course, most importantly, those that are the budget team. that help put this budget document together in a way that's easy for us all to navigate. They make sure all of the numbers tie together and give you a good collective representation of the city budget. And so with that, I'd like to recognize them by asking them to stand as I call their names. Star Kavanyan. Christian Dominguez, Finance Manager. I'm sorry, Star was the Assistant Director of Finance. Rosa Roman, Finance Analyst. Amber Darling, Finance Analyst. Cheyenne Everett, Accountant. Carl Vernon, Accountant. Clayisha McElwee, Finance Technician. Michael Mistretta, Finance Technician. Kaylin Serrano, our Administrative Intern. Oh, and how can we forget Ms. Carmen Kuhn, our finance director? This is the team that leads the effort. Of course, they work very, very closely with all the departments. And certainly, as you can imagine, it's not something that is developed overnight. Of course, a few months ago, you'll recall having presented and completed the mid-year budget presentation to you. And probably the very next day they're working on preparing for this moment before you so tremendous amount of work, a lot of effort and I just personally want to thank each and every one of you for all the hard work that in long nights long days that you put in to actually put this document together, so thank you very much. And so kicking things off, this budget has been prepared with the guidance, vision, and support of the city council. It reflects a tremendous amount of coordination, planning, and collaboration among staff across all departments. As a result of their dedication and hard work, I'm pleased to present this balanced budget. And so what you have here is the budget in summary format, the aggregate level of the entire city budget. And so what that means is you've got a number of 87 funds that comprise all of the city budget. Your city budget is proposing a revenue plan of $403,130,821. It's approximately $27 million HIGHER THAN THE PRIOR FISCAL YEAR BUDGET. IT ALSO HAS AN EXPENDITURE PLAN OF 396,762,028 AND THAT'S APPROXIMATELY 9 MILLION HIGHER THAN THE PRIOR YEAR FISCAL BUDGET. It does contain on the aggregate basis a surplus to the order of about $6.37 million. And so that's something that in previous years you're used to seeing a negative where there's an aggregate dependency upon reserves. But in this particular case, we've been able to swing this budget with a surplus. THE BUDGET ALTOGETHER INCLUDES $33.68 MILLION WORTH OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS. AND A DETAILED LISTING OF THOSE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS CAN BE MORE EASILY FOUND ON PAGE 324 AND 325 OF YOUR BUDGET DOCUMENT. THAT WILL GIVE YOU A GOOD RUNDOWN OF WHAT THAT $33.6 MILLION REPRESENTS. And you know commonly we talk about the number of funds and I briefly mention them the the whole city budget Operates over 87 funds and why I bring that to your attention is because as you see a total expenditure plan Nearing four hundred million dollars that sounds like a lot of money but it really isn't when you look at all of the number of different funds that were responsible for managing each of those funds and I would effectively characterize as small business units, if you will, that we have to manage based upon the rules that go along with the revenues that are sourced to pay those expenditure plan. And of course, we'll talk a little bit about the different funds, the general funds, the fiduciary funds, and the special funds. And so, with that this slide is is really intended to kind of break things down by fund type and so, as I mentioned those fun types. You do have two general funds of course one's clearly labeled general fund and then measure P, even though we account for it separately that's also considered a general. fund because it's generated from a general tax. But combined, those two are about 42% of the expenditure budget, 31% being the general fund at $121.3 million. Your Measure P fund is 11% of the total expenditure plan at about $44.4 million. And then, of course, the biggest expenditure fund by type is your enterprise funds. And the enterprise funds are, I think the best way to summarize them, they're the organizations such as the water department, the airport department, Bemis, solid waste, departments that operate singularly With with specific purposes and specific intent, where the monies raised for those purposes have to be spent clearly for those purposes, we do have a category on here called other governmental funds. which is about 10% by fund type. And really lumped in there are the special funds or the more restricted funds that we're used to seeing. Examples of those would be your DIF fees, your assessment districts, the SLADs, the LMADs, the DFADs, the MADs, gas tax, Measure I would be another example of a special fund that would be lumped into that other government fund. And so in this particular case, we're actually now breaking it down, the revenues and expenditures by category. And I think on the revenue side, one characterization we'd like to offer is that of the monies we generate to run this city, not all revenues that we generate are taxes. And in fact, you can see on this pie chart to the left that taxes in and of themselves only represent about 28%. OF THE TOTAL REVENUES THAT WE RECEIVED AS THE CITY. THE LARGEST, OF COURSE, IS BEING CHARGES FOR SERVICES. AN EXAMPLE OF A CHARGE FOR SERVICE WOULD BE SIMILAR TO WHAT YOUR ENTERPRISES CHARGE. SO IF IT'S YOUR WATER DEPARTMENT, CHARGE FOR SERVICE WOULD BE BASICALLY THE CHARGE FOR THE WATER BEING SUPPLIED. OR IN THE CASE OF TRASH, THE CHARGES ASSOCIATED WITH THE TRASH COLLECTION SYSTEM. And altogether among those, you've got your $403 million revenue budget. And then on the expenditure side of things, you'll note the breakdown there, about 47% is operations and maintenance, with the next largest category being personnel, which is about 25% of total expenditures citywide. This, again, on the aggregate is showing you a couple of things. It's looking at revenues budgeted versus actual and also expenditures budgeted. versus actual and this chart really kind of helps speak to cash and what is happening to your cash and your cash flow. And as you can see the column starts in the fiscal year 22 and trends forward to 2025 and just kind of walking you through a little bit the bars are basically your expenditure. BARS, THE BLUE BEING THE BUDGETED VERSUS THE GRAY BEING THE ACTUAL. AND YOU CAN SEE THAT WE BUDGET FAIRLY CONSERVATIVELY BASED UPON THE ACTUAL EXPENDITURES. YOU SEE A TREND WHERE THE ACTUAL EXPENDITURES ARE COMING IN WELL BELOW WHAT'S BUDGETED. AND YOU SEE A SIMILAR TREND WITH THE LINES. AND WITH THE LINES YOU'VE GOT THE RED BEING THE BUDGETED REVENUE LINE AND WHILE THE Actuals are coming in less than what's budgeted. What you do see is that there is a trend of the actual revenues traditionally trending higher than the actual expenditures. And so the difference between the two, the gray bar and the green line, Everything in between that is effectively free cash flow that's dropping to the bottom of your ledger going into your reserve account so that you can use either for a savings plan for a capital improvement or to help manage cash flow in future years. In this particular slide, as we kind of talked about commonly, the health of a city is often measured by the position of its general fund. And in summary, you have a healthy general fund, which I'll further explain with the later slides. But what you have here in your general fund, breaking that out from the aggregate, your general fund revenues are budgeted to be $120,259,000 to be balanced against total expenditures of $121,370,000. So this expenditure plan does call for a deficit spend where it is going to rely on your unencumbered fund balance basically to satisfy that deficit. So this fund budget actually balances with the use of unencumbered fund balance. But if you look at kind of the breakdown on the revenue side of that $120 million, you can see to the left in the left pie chart that about 53% of your revenues to the general fund are derived from taxes. And the next slide will help illustrate what those taxes are. But then you see another breakdown where pass-throughs, cost allocation, those would be charges to other departments for the central services of the city. On the expenditure side, a lot of it's broken down either between O&M and personnel costs. And so this slide particular gives you a better understanding on the revenue side of how your revenue is budgeted and generated. And so at the very top, and these are ordered based upon, based upon receipt, but of

To know i'm on New York Hello Okay, here we go.

So, of course, the top three and again just just a point and make sure we're connecting dots. The the on the 2027 budgeted revenue column at the very bottom that hundred and 20 million does connect with the the number that you've seen on previous slides. AND SO WITH THAT, THE THREE LARGEST REVENUE SOURCES CONTRIBUTING TO YOUR GENERAL FUND ARE SALES TAX, PROPERTY TAX, AND WHAT'S CALLED PASS THROUGH RPPTF, BUT THAT'S ALSO A PROPERTY TAX. THAT'S BASICALLY THE RESIDUAL PROPERTY TAX THAT'S PASSED THROUGH TO CITIES RESULTING FROM THE DISSOLUTION OF THE FORMER REDEVELOPMENT AGENCIES. AND I THINK IT'S WORTH POINTING OUT THAT AMONGST THOSE THREE, OF COURSE, SALES TAX IS THE LARGEST BASED UPON THE DEFINED CATEGORY. But when you consider property tax and pass-through really being property tax in and of themselves, property tax combined is about 33, almost 34%. So we're at a point, and this is the second year in a row that we've experienced this, where we've actually seen property tax collections surpass our sales tax collections. And I think it is important to note, because we'll make this comparison later in the presentation, THAT COMBINED, THOSE TOP THREE CONTRIBUTORS TO YOUR GENERAL FUND ARE ABOUT ALMOST 60% OF YOUR TOTAL GENERAL FUND REVENUES. AND SO THAT'S WORTH KNOWING AND MONITORING. BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, ANY EFFECT TO ANY OF THOSE THREE CATEGORIES OR TWO CATEGORIES, I SHOULD certainly can influence a direct relationship or a direct impact to what you see on the expenditure side. BUT I WOULD CALL THOSE OUT MOST SPECIFICALLY. JUST TALKING THROUGH SOME OF THESE OTHERS JUST SO YOU HAVE AN IDEA OF WHAT THEY ARE IF YOU DON'T ALREADY. FRANCHISE FEES IS A REVENUE GENERATED FROM UTILITY COMPANIES. UTILITY COMPANIES DO HAVE AGREEMENTS WITH THE CITY BASICALLY TO BE ABLE TO OPERATE WITHIN YOUR RIGHT-O-WAY. AND SO FRANCHISE FEES BASICALLY ARE REVENUES GENERATED FOR THE GRANTING OF THAT RIGHT TO UTILITY COMPANIES. John Potter, charges for service we kind of touched on, you also have transient occupancy tax, also known as the hotel tax that's a tax that's. John Potter, levied to those that are staying in the hotels it's a 7% bed tax, and I think, finally, just to put some perspective again focusing on the sales tax and the property tax numbers if we were to look at a trend of. How those revenues were growing on the sales tax side of things over the last five years since 2021 sales tax has been only growing at a at a rate of about point 76% which is less than 1%. And property tax has been growing at about 6.3% per year so we've seen some good growth they're likely do the evaluation, the homes and the addition of new homes. But then also our PPTF has been growing pretty meaningfully and that's why we've seen it combined exceeding the sales tax our PPTF has grown at about 16% per year. And so we're certainly expecting on the our PPTF to to level out just knowing how that works that it's basically residual after debts are paid for the former RDA to solutions. And so, moving on since we just touched on the revenue side of how your general fund. generates this this pie chart shows you the expenditure side and, as I called attention to 60% roughly of the top. Revenues being generated for your general fund I typically like to compare that to the total cost for police and fire, and so this this pie chart does show you that police. Services actually make up the largest cost to your general fund at 35.4% and, of course, fire being 17.6% combined those are about 53% of your total general fund expense. And so comparing 53% of your expense to 60% of your revenue being property tax and sales tax, I think it's worth continuing to monitor the closer that that expense gets to your revenues for sales tax and property tax. The more and more dependent. Sales tax and property tax coming in at rates consistent with the growth of the cost if it doesn't then we're effectively going to get into an imbalance to where. There may be a point in time where those revenues don't keep up with the cost for those services. And then one thing that we do not just for the general fund, but you'll see this more in the presentation for measure P. But we also do and take a similar approach to all of the other funds that we're managing. Here is here is how we view the world when it comes to Determining the fiscal health in this case of the general fund. We do like to do a lot of forecasts and in this particular case, it's a 5 year forecast. Um, and also considering, uh, the revenues and expenditures. Comparing the, the cash balance to, um, your, your reserve requirements. So, just walking through it, your total revenues, um, as we have just seen for the, for the upcoming fiscal year is 120.26Million. If we forecast that forward based upon. The trends that we've been experiencing, we do forecast a 1% increase over time. So taking that $120 million in 26-27 to $125 million in 2030-2031. And so with that, we compare it against total expenditures and just dropping to the total expenditure line. You'll see an increase from the $121 million budgeted to $135 in 2031. And we're actually forecasting a 3.5% increase. across the board over that period of time. So certainly between that forecast alone, those inflators, you're naturally going to see an imbalance where the costs outpace the revenue. And so just dropping down, you'll actually see the reserve balance. And so we actually like to focus on the reserve balance, and that's your total unencumbered cash, unencumbered fund balance. And so with that, you actually have a fairly robust unencumbered fund balance in this fiscal year, projected to be $95.2 million. But as you can see over time, that does drop to $54 million. which is a drop of about $41 million over the course of the five years. But we do compare that to your 17% reserve requirement. And what you do see is a surplus available line, which tracks cash positive. And that surplus available line, I would call that really your rainy day fund, because in that particular case, your reserve requirement is met, that money is set aside. And if you wanted to take on a big project or just use that to basically prepare for the future, knowing that you've got a deficit spend situation and you can't see any new revenues coming in, you know, certainly it would be prudent to consider using that cash and carrying it forward as long as possible until you see some meaningful increases on the revenue side. But with that being said. I think the simple way to look at it and determine that the general fund is in a healthy status is looking at your current projected reserve fund level of 78% and forecasting it forward at 40% in 2031. That's still exceeding your reserve target of 17%. So I would say that's in pretty good shape. And then this is just a better illustration of what you just saw numerically in the previous slide. And so the yellow line in this particular bar chart is showing you where your reserve fund level is. And so everything above that reserve fund level on each of the years in the bar, everything above the yellow, that is an encumbered fund balance. That's money above your reserve target. So that's your rating day fund. And so similar to aggregate shown earlier, this shows how we conservatively budget revenue as the yellow line, which is the budgeted revenue line, tracks consistently below the green line, which is actuals. And the budgeted expenditures consistently track above the actuals. And so this traditional trend is contributing to your positive cash position. So it's basically positive net income is what this is showing. And so, this slide illustrates budgeted and actuals and the relationship to your reserve balance and reserve and I think the interesting thing here is, if you look at the bars again the bars are going to be your expenditures and the lines are going to be your cash the yellow line being your reserve. Your reserve target. And the gray line being your actual cash, and I think the interesting thing here worth noting is that if you look at that gray line and your actual cash ending position increasing over time, it's actually increasing in a direction that's actually getting close to one year's actual expenditures. So I think that's a pretty good measure of where we're proposing to end in the 2025 fiscal year. So now we're going to start breaking this budget down a little bit further based upon the strategic plan goals that you've adopted in your current strategic plan, and so this one starts with a strategic plan B, which is police fire code compliance animal services altogether we call that public safety. And so, starting out with code compliance and animal services this budget does include the total personnel count of about 43 of 43 i'm sorry full time and part time positions. And so that's a number that's three department administrative positions 12 in the animal services division that are full time eight that are part time. And then also 20 full-time equivalents in the code compliance division with five of those assigned to the homeless engagement team. And so on this side of public safety, you've got a general fund and measure P budget revenue of $1.168 million and the total expenditure of a little over $8.7 million. On the FHIR side of the equation, you do have combined funded from, again, general fund and Measure P. And so in the combination of those two funds, you have a total revenue of $1.277 million. And that is measured against an expenditure plan of about $30.87 million. And in this particular case, on the revenue side, because perhaps you're not familiar with how the fire department would generate revenue. We actually do generate revenue on the prevention side of the house where it includes licenses, permits, and charges for services such as plan checks and inspections. And so that's where the fire department would be generating their revenue. Not enough to balance the whole budget, but certainly helpful in offsetting some of those costs that can get charged out. And then, with that the total department is 93 personnel 75 full timers on the floor 12 in the administrative side of the House and then six coming over from building and safety on the prevention side of the House. On the law enforcement side, we do contract with San Bernardino County Sheriff for law enforcement services. We just approved a couple of nights ago the Schedule A that included 146.33 full-time equivalents. That's 103 sworn deputies or police officers, along with 43.33 non-sworn. You get into the .33 because in that CONTRACT, THERE'S ABOUT 13.33 DISPATCH STAFF MEMBERS ASSIGNED TO THE CONTRACT. SO ALL TOGETHER BETWEEN MEASURE P AND GENERAL FUND, THEY DO GENERATE A REVENUE OF $2.36 MILLION. THAT'S MOSTLY REIMBURSEMENTS THROUGH YOUR SCHEDULE, I'M SORRY, THROUGH YOUR MOUs WITH SCHOOL DISTRICT AND THE MALL. AND THEN ALSO AN EXPENDITURE PLAN COMBINED OF 50 MILLION, And just to point out you'll note that that expenditure plan is $50 million the scheduling and of itself isn't that that number the schedule a is 42 million 048 number, and so the difference being additional department related costs, including maintenance associated with the patrol vehicles. I will call attention to one issue that we're monitoring certainly caught us by surprise the the increase that we saw year over year with the schedule a. And one of the one comparable that we were looking at is what did the contract cost back in 2021 versus what it's currently costing and so in 2021 the schedule a you should know. Was $29.1 million and we have increased over the course of the five years to what we're going to experience this upcoming year, which is $42 million altogether over that period of time it's a 45% increase or a 5% annual increase total dollar amount is almost $13 million just over that five year period. That's one issue that we're going to be monitoring. It's definitely going to be hard to sustain those types of increases, but we'll continue to monitor that as the years progress. And so now we'll touch on Measure P and provide a revenue expenditure overview. This also we characterize as a discretionary general fund, even though we account for it separately. We do that because when Measure P was approved, it was approved with an oversight board wanting a separate accounting so that it can be clearly identified that the funds generated for Measure P are being spent consistent with the intent of Measure P. And so with that, what this slide is showing you is that this proposed budget is proposing a beginning cash on hand to start the fiscal year of about $38 million, where it's projecting revenues in the order of 33.8, almost $33.9 million, with projected expenditures of 39.5, almost $39.6 million. So it does depend on the cash on hand as we started with to balance the budget. It does draw on a projected fund balance in the order of $5.7 million. That'll be a draw on your cash. And one thing worth noting that's not included in these numbers is that the projected expenditures do exclude capital in the amount of 4.75 million reserved for fire apparatus and the police station. And what that means is because those monies aren't spent, we're actually, we've been sequestering funds to fund the apparatus reserve program that we have so that you do have money available when the time comes to actually buy new fire engines or fire trucks. And similarly, we've also been setting aside money to defray the cost associated with the ultimate police department to the order of $4 million a year since Measure P started generating revenue. And so some of the highlights for the Measure P. This Measure P fund continues to prioritize efforts to strengthen traffic enforcement initiatives. This budget does acquire advanced EMS and hazmat equipment to expand fire department capabilities. It does expand building improvements at the animal care and adoption Center to enhance animal care services, it does implement Ada enhancements across various parks and it does fund police station and fire department apparatus reserves. And so similar to the slide that you saw for the general fund, this one actually is specific to Measure P and is really also intended to tell you or share with you the effects on cash of this budget. And so starting out, you'll see total revenues of $33.8 million projected forward to 36.72. And that's assuming a 2% increase in the revenues. On the expense side, we really see expenses or forecast expenses being flat and not a significant increase there over time. And effectively, what you're seeing is a reserve balance of 32.35, drawing down to about 15.06 to the end of the five-year period. And a big part of that is draws being made to actual fund police station construction. So as we get through this fiscal year, we're expected as an example to have $20 million set aside for the construction of the police department. And you may recall some of the presentation from Tuesday where the total budget is about $7273 million for that project. And as part of the cash flows that we did for the infrastructure analysis, we figured a need for an additional $52, $53 million. That's because we're effectively pulling down the $20 million that we've been setting aside. And so that's why you see some of that reserve balance drop so dramatically, despite the fact that it doesn't appear that there's a major deficit spend there. But I think the important point to draw from this is dropping straight to the bottom, which is looking at your measure P reserve level, starting at 82% and dropping to 37%. And so across the board, you're staying well above your 17% reserve. requirement, which is a good thing. And again, since we did it in the last slide, identified what I would characterize as your rainy day fund, that's a surplus available. If there was something needed, a special project, or there was a desire just to use that rainy day fund to carry forward into future years to manage imbalances, you've got that $25.62 million that reduces to $8.21 over the five years. Similarly, this is a graphical representation of what you just said, so it's easier to see, but the yellow line is your 17% reserve target. You do see the bars being your reserve amount, the total amounts, and you do see that declining over time. But I think the great illustration is everything above the yellow line is above your reserve target and is effectively your rainy day fund. So moving on and past the general funds we're going to look at your enterprise funds, and these are summarized at the high level. And what you do see, starting with the sewer sanitary fund we we call that fund 425 you've got a revenue. plan of $41.5 million dollars matched against an expenditure plan of 36 almost $37 million dollars. CALLING FOR OR PROJECTING A SURPLUS IN THE ORDER OF ABOUT $4.5 MILLION. I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT TO NOTE IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE THAT WE'RE IN YEAR FOUR OF THE FIVE-YEAR RATE PLAN AND THIS BUDGET DOES ASSUME AS CALLED FOR IN THE RATE PLAN A 3% RATE INCREASE. ON THE SOLID WASTE SIDE OF THE ENTERPRISE FUNDS, Solid waste, we call funds 426 through 428. Combined, you've got a $35.98 million revenue plan set to match against the expenditure plan of about $31.8 million, calling for about almost a $4.1, $4.2 million surplus. And that surplus drops basically to the cash balance to attend to any capital needs for that operation. And so on the solid waste similarly we're in year four of the five year study this that plan actually calls for a 5% increase in year four and so accordingly this budget does recommend that 5% increase to the to the to the to the rate. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LOGISTICS AIRPORT, THERE'S A NUMBER OF FUNDS THAT MAKE UP THEIR OPERATION, BUT IN TOTAL YOU'VE GOT A $35.2 MILLION REVENUE PLAN VERSUS A $34.8 MILLION EXPENDITURE PLAN. THERE'S A LARGE AMOUNT, ALMOST $20 MILLION, THAT'S FOR DEBT SERVICE. BUT THEN WHAT'S REMAINING, I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT TO NOTE OF THE OPERATING REVENUES, 80% OF THE OPERATING REVENUES GENERATED ARE EFFECTIVELY LEASE TYPE REVENUES. SO YOU SEE CASH POSITIVE THERE. ON THE STORM DRAIN FUND, THAT'S YOUR $4 A MONTH FEE TO DO MAINTENANCE IN THE STORM DRAINS OR STORM CHANNELS THAT WE HAVE. FUND 202, YOU CAN SEE JUST A VERY Modest surplus $1.9 million revenue plan versus a $1.6 million expenditure plan that's. that's there's no projected change there's no proposed change to that rate in the upcoming fiscal year. Next, you've got your street lighting fund. This is fund 200, and this is currently proposed to have a $4.40 increase. And with that, you'll see the 4.2 revenue plan matched against the 3.6 expenditure plan. VMS, you see a pretty meaningful surplus there. And this is basically the sale of not only electricity but also natural gas services. And you can see a healthy surplus there. VMS is not proposing any rate increases for either natural gas or electricity. And then finally, as it relates to water, 410 through 416, you do see a combined revenue plan of 63.7 versus a 57.1 million dollar expenditure plan. calling for a surplus of almost $6.6 million. On the water side, we're in year one of the new five-year rate plan. And so with that, that rate plan that we just looked at actually calls for a 4% rate increase in year one. So this budget does contemplate that. And so now we're going to actually take a look at your expenditures by strategic plan goal. And so this pie chart actually breaks that down based upon your goals. The largest of the expenditure is appearing to be goal E in the investment of infrastructure, where 61.6% of the expenditures are for infrastructure. It's about $27.1 million. You do see reducing homelessness being one of the next largest at 12.4%. which is about $5.5 million. I'm sorry, public safety is a little bit higher than that at $6.4 million or 14.6%. And this, we're kind of breaking down a little bit more granularly what you'll actually see in some of those strategic plan goals that we track in terms of expenditures. Certainly when it comes to strategic goal A, we've got a number in there for the finance department, city manager's office, information technology, largely services that are relied upon to help us promote and maintain the fiscal sustainability goals. As it relates to strategic cold be public safety this budget includes a number of specific items that i'll call out a few definitely on the code compliance side. You can expect animal care and adoption center updates, so there's certainly going to be some physical improvements to that facility. On the fire side, we've got some fire station upgrades at both 312 and 311 with internal facility replacements, fire station exterior paint, and we're actually planning to do the conceptual and construction design for a new fire station. On the fire site as well. You've got hazmat identification monitors sole monitors And a number of other apparatus replacement schedule items Strategic goal C community and economic development you can kind of see without reading all the detail there and We've got some old town activation items planned along with some business development marketing activities. Homelessness, I think this is worth calling out specifically. Certainly on the homelessness side, you can see a big part of our effort being focused on the wellness center. That's both in terms of helping keep the operations afloat, but then also setting up backstop funding, just in case there's a need for additional funding, perhaps because some of the other funding sources may not come through. Planning for that, just in case. On the infrastructure side of things, you can see quite a few benefiting the airport. They've got a number of building improvements that they're making to some of the old buildings out there. They're buying some equipment. Same with the engineering, I think some of these are worth calling out citywide pavement preservation and maintenance project air expressway improvement project amethyst road sidewalk project. bear valley road improvement project got a citywide sewer pertinence replacement project storm drain project. bridge crested buff crest that's a traffic signal project that we've been working on so those are definitely projects that I think the Community will. Look forward to seeing in the upcoming fiscal year and then a number of technology improvements Investing in infrastructure again, you'll see some benefiting community services Moving on to e you'll see investing in infrastructure benefiting Public Works VMS has got a number of improvements as well. All this is better detailed in some of that capital improvement section within the budget binder And so moving on to personnel and organizational updates. This year we have a number of proposed recommendations that are actually baked into this budget. And these are things that we look at and look at closely in terms of trying to maintain our benefit and compensation levels for competitiveness reasons, but also to help keep up with inflation so this budget does include a 3% COLA for nonrepresented employees. It also includes a 3% COLA for employees represented by the Victorville professional firefighters. That would be pursuant to the MOU that's currently in place between the city and the Victorville professional firefighters. The recommendations also include enhancing Some of the benefit allowances are provided to employees. And with that, it proposes a $200 a month increase to the fringe A, which is the amount available for offsetting the health care costs. and then also a $200 increase to the fridge subsidy, which is effectively the matching subsidy offered by the city for costs above the basic health care costs for the single individual. This budget also does include a $2,500 a year tuition reimbursement for part-time employees. You'll recall that as a part of our standard benefits to full time employees tuition reimbursement is something that we extend to full timers, and so this is recognizing the importance of our part timers to the collective employment system that we have and also wanting to provide better opportunities for our part timers to be able to grow into perhaps full time roles with the city. This slide is here to kind of just highlight the history of what's been going on with cola and you can see over the years, going back to the 2007 2008 fiscal year. what's been happening, not only in terms of actual where you see the third column cola CPI, but then, as we brought forward recommendations to this Council. YOU CAN KIND OF COMPARE SIDE BY SIDE WITH HOW WE'VE REACTED TO THE ACTUAL CPI WITH AN APPROVED COLA TO THE EMPLOYEES. AND SO IN THIS FISCAL YEAR, THE ACTUAL COLA, THE MARCH, I'M SORRY, THE ACTUAL CPI MARCH TO MARCH IS 3.1%, AND SO WE DID RECOMMEND TO ALSO BE CONSISTENT WITH THE MOU THAT WE HAVE WITH LABOR, 3% ACROSS THE BOARD. And so this slide talks through our position control. Currently we have 570 full-time equivalents approved as positions to be filled in the city. And so the upcoming budget proposes a total position control of 581. This is the full-time employees. And so with that, that breaks down to 11 new positions over the current fiscal year. It does delete five positions. It reclassifies three. There's 26 title changes in there with a net added position of six employees. Not included in that count are what are on the Schedule A. with the Sheriff's Department. That contract is 143 people. And so combined, if you looked at the 581 that's proposed in our position control and considered adding what's under contract, as an employer, you are taking on the responsibility for 724 employees. So I share that with you just to give you a sense of how big we really are. It's becoming a fairly large organization. But getting back to the 581 that we have direct control over, broken down just to kind of illustrate the changes year over year. The building department is reducing by a net five with six positions actually moving over really to the fire department. The city manager's side of the house is increasing by three. The engineering department is increasing by four. The finance department is increasing by one. THE FIRE DEPARTMENT IS INCREASING BY EIGHT, BUT REALLY THAT'S NET TWO BECAUSE SIX PEOPLE ARE COMING OVER FROM THE BUILDING DEPARTMENT. HUMAN RESOURCES IS A PLUS ONE. AND PUBLIC WORKS IS A MINUS ONE, AND THAT'S A MINUS ONE MORE SO BECAUSE WE'VE DONE AN AUDIT AND WE BELIEVE THAT THAT POSITION THERE'S BEEN AN ERROR IN THE ACCOUNTING OF THE POSITIONS FOR PUBLIC WORKS, BUT WE'RE STILL TRYING TO FERRET THAT OUT. SO RIGHT NOW IT'S SHOWING AS A MINUS ONE. We think that's because there was an error in the original reporting. And so with that, this slide here is really kind of to highlight a couple of things. First, you can see the population growth over time, which has a relationship to the demand for services. And since 2007 to the upcoming fiscal year, you've got a population increase from 109,000 all the way up to about 140,000. Annually, it's about a 1.5% increase, but I think I will call to your attention over the last five years, going back to 21-22, that increase of population from 127,000 to 139,000. that's at a 2% clip. And so what we're seeing is over the more recent term, our population increase is actually growing at a faster rate. But then also do wanna call to your attention because 581 employees may sound like a lot, but certainly as we compare to the history, it's certainly not its highest point and we were actually much higher back in the 2007, 2008 fiscal year in terms of total number of employees. And so, as far as organizational changes kind of touched on it effective July 1 the fire department prevention division will be I'm sorry the fire prevention division will be reassigned to the building. From the building department to the fire department that reorg includes six positions and the positions include deputy fire marshal fire investigator fire plan checker and fire inspector, which are three positions holding that title. And so, despite the reorg you'll still see those individuals physically in the permit Center, which is located in the building department. And so the forward look now that we've kind of gone through the the numbers of it all. To give you a perspective of some of what we're expecting to see over the course of the next year or next couple of years number of number of projects that we're expecting so starting out on the. commercial side of things. We're seeing a lot of progress with the Target Shopping Center. That's a 30 acre expansion of the Desert Sky Plaza with 11 new commercial buildings totaling a little over 300,000 square feet of building space, of which 148,000 is expected to be the target located at the southeast corner of Roy Rogers Drive and Amargosa Road. So looking forward to seeing that break ground in this upcoming fiscal year. You're probably familiar with Del Amo Motorsports are taken over the old new way facility and that's the reuse of an existing building to establish a almost 90,000 square foot power sports sales parts and service facility. Walt's frozen custard as a new construction project of 5900 square feet. restaurant with a drive through located approximately 400 feet west of the intersection of locust and bear valley. SCLA, we're expected to see a couple of large industrial buildings totaling about 1.7 million square feet located in that general area that was the former Westwinds Golf Course. And then Burtek Industries is expected to start the construction of a 43,000 square foot demolition and inert recovery and processing facility located over there on Abbey Lane. I think this one's pretty good to see on the residential side we're still seeing quite a bit of residential development, and so these are the projects in plan review or recently approved and so. Dr horton is is got three tracks totaling 279 lots and their tracks are at the southwest corner of amethyst road and mojave drive southwest corner of tony ridge lane and amethyst road. along with at the terminus of Flaming Arrow Place. Excuse me. Pacific Communities has one track with 94 lots. Legacy Homes has five tracks with 404 lots. Richmond America is moving with two tracks, 360 lots. LGI Home is active with two tracks and 239 lots. KB Home has one track with 135 lots, and we have a private developer taken on a small 18 locked track. So still seeing some activity on the residential side of the house. do have some medical activity taking shape. So Desert Valley Hospital does have a planned expansion adding another 83,600 square feet. It's a two-story building that includes a new emergency department on the first floor and a new medical surgical department on the second floor. And that's located at Second Avenue at the existing hospital campus. Medical office space is also new construction proposed. OF A LITTLE OVER 26,000 SQUARE FEET AT THE CORNER OF BUSINESS CENTER DRIVE AND SILICA. MORE OFFICE SPACE AT BUSINESS CENTER AND NORTH OF JASMINE, ABOUT 8,000 SQUARE FEET OF MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL SPACE THERE. DO HAVE ONE HOTEL MOVING FORWARD, WOODSPRING SUITES, WHICH IS NEW CONSTRUCTION OF 113 ROOM HOTEL LOCATED AT THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF COTTONWOOD AND PAYUTE AVENUE. The airport is finding themselves largely occupied 90% of their leasable space is occupied so they're actually in that position of looking to. Utilize other properties and that's why you've seen some demolitions coming forward we're actually trying to remove older facilities to basically utilize the underlying dirt and pursue additional development opportunities to create new space and new leasing opportunities. There is we're creating a site map for future development along ready street in fandom West that's one of the locations. And then off airport, we're still seeing continued investment in assets and infrastructure by completing the roadway and building projects. And Covington Capital, they're the developer of the old golf course project. We're certainly seeing them ramp up in terms of getting ready to break ground. And then as we're nearing the closing of our forward look, this is probably a familiar slide to you. And we've taken a big step in the direction of trying to help solve this equation. But we are fairly aware, and we've been talking about it at every budget presentation over the last two or three years now, of notwithstanding the fact that you just saw a presentation that Mayor Mrakas, says, from a budget and fiscal perspective we're in good shape, you know we're always looking forward through the windshield and trying to figure out, you know, is there an iceberg coming or. Mayor Mrakas, Is there something that we can plan for and certainly what we hear from the Community you know there's been a tremendous amount of feedback for the need for additional infrastructure and repairs and upkeep. And so, certainly we've identified $865 million worth of infrastructure needs that this budget just cannot sustain cannot pick up. And so, of course, the action this last Tuesday night directing us to proceed and pursuing another measure to at least generate revenue that will be huge in terms of helping put a major debt and trying to achieve funding for a number of these infrastructure projects. And so with that, as far as next steps, we're kind of at the end of the road here. The leadership team is available for any questions you might have as we have the budget binders for you. Certainly looking forward to getting any feedback that you might have. Certainly if there's things in here that we haven't included that you'd like to talk about, certainly we'd like to talk about that. And we'll certainly evaluate it and consider it as a part of the next presentation, which should be an abbreviated version of this presentation at the June 2nd City Council meeting. And so with that, thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council, staff, and myself are available for any questions or comments you might have.

Thank you, Mr. Metzler. Madam Clerk, will you please read the recommendation?

There is no action required at this time. It is recommended that the City Council discuss and provide direction for staff regarding the proposed fiscal year 2026-2027 budget following a presentation by staff.

OK. Mr. Rensselaer, yeah, some of us do have questions. If city council would agree, since it isn't an actionable item, we have two minutes and then three minutes. Let's combine them together. Do I need a motion for that, or no, just tell me? No. So your questions and comments are going to be together for a total of five minutes, OK?

Mayor, for Tim Harriman, you're up first.

Well, I want to say thank you to staff. That was, as this being my fourth year, I definitely understand it better than I did in the beginning in year one. I really don't have anything. I would like to request a couple more homeless task force employees for code enforcement. I think we need a couple more code enforcement task, homeless engagement employees. And I'm just basing that on what I see. And I live in an area that's where most of the retail in the city is, so obviously, I'M GOING TO SEE MORE OTHER THAN MAYBE OLD TOWN. I NOTICED MR. CITY MANAGER, THE DIFFERENTIAL IN EMPLOYEES IN 2007, WAS IT 2007? WE WERE UP TO WHAT WAS IT? WAS THAT DUE TO A RECESSION OR IS THAT JUST US BEING MORE

better at what we do thank you madam mayor members of council so yeah going the question goes back to the number that was in the 2007-2008 fiscal year and so calling out the position count that existed in that fiscal year it was 643 full-time equivalents compared to what it is in this upcoming budget of 581 and so i think certainly were much leaner, were much more efficient than we were back then. There was a major recession that certainly impacted, and I think that's why you see a fairly dramatic drop just year over year. You saw a drop of about 80 employees literally year over year, and so that was Uh, an impact, uh, probably the 1st, uh, impact, uh, resulting from the recession, because then thereafter in 2009 to 2010, you went down to 394 and in remembering those times, it was, it was prettiest year. Um, the city was in in some pretty difficult financial position to where it had to cut very, very deep, um, and actually, uh, resulting from that. actually had to cut a number of services. As we grew over time, you know, we re-evaluated what services really were, you know, priority of the council. And certainly that's why it's a big part of the influence and wanting to have a strategic plan to make sure that we're clear in what we need going forward. And so we've been able to program our employee growth based upon some of those, those visions you've set forth in terms of the strategic planning.

Would it be fair to say that some of that is attributed to us having the finest equipment to do for the employees to do their jobs?

Certainly, that does play a factor into it. As time progressed, whether it's physical equipment or even technology, that both factors in to helping do the jobs more effectively and efficiently, yes.

OK, and then on page 11, on the sales tax on the actuals in 2026. And I may have asked this question before at the original workshop. Is that dip because the problem we had with the computer system? What do you call that? Ransomware or whatever it was. I'm sorry. Page 11.

Page 11.

The 2026 actuals is quite a bit different than all the others that beat the sales tax top line.

Okay. I'm sorry. I'm caught up with your sales tax top line.

Yeah.

You've seen a dip. I'm sorry.

Yeah. So we're going 2024, 29.9 million, 2025, 29.4 million. And then 2026, 18.2 million. Is that, was it, was that due to the, go ahead.

I, so the 2026 actuals is representing this current fiscal year. So it's just half the year. We're not done yet, yeah.

Okay, okay. And if that was a dumb question.

No, no, it looks, yeah, it. Definitely catches your attention.

And I guess then my other question is, on page 13, total revenues were projected 27, 28 to be down. Why would that be? That was page 13. So total revenue.

From 120 to 107.5.

Yeah, and then increasing up to 2930 up to 123.3 million. Is 2728 per check? Correct. Okay. Why is there such a big difference there?

We can definitely bring that up for you in just one second.

Yeah, so I think the biggest number, and Carmen can help me with the exact amount, but the biggest contributing factor to the drop is the reduced, there's one revenue category called PSM, public service. Public safety maintenance. Public safety maintenance. The general fund depends on measure P for this payment of the public safety maintenance Program. And that was established effectively as a stability payment from Measure P to the general fund. And the logic for it had more to do with the fact that because Measure P was for public safety, and it was intended, of course, to help add public safety. Let's talk about police. I think police is probably the easiest example. One of the one of the concerns once we started budgeting for both measure P and general fund is because the bulk of the schedule a, for example, was charged to. General fund and with that you're going to see the largest increase in terms of inflationary factor and so just as we saw going from 21 to 41 million. We saw the potential that if we didn't create some kind of stability mechanism where measure P was basically paying the general fund there could be a potential to where. THE COST INCREASES TO THE GENERAL FUND OUTPACE ITS ABILITY TO ACTUALLY PAY FOR IT TO WHERE YOU WOULD ACTUALLY GET TO A SITUATION WHERE YOU COULD AFFORD THE DEPUTIES UNDER MEASURE P WITHOUT A PROBLEM, BUT THE GENERAL FUND COULDN'T AFFORD THE DEPUTIES UNDER THE GENERAL FUND. SO IT DIDN'T MAKE ANY SENSE TO RUN INTO A SITUATION WHERE THE GENERAL FUND COULDN'T AFFORD ITS DEPUTIES AND HAVE TO You know potentially cut those deputies I mean that wouldn't have been logical or shift those deputies to measure P and so it's one of those things that we Were able to foresee a problem in just trying to be able to at least maintain the services So there's basically a payment program in place between measure P and general fund basically to like a stability payment and so we we analyze every year what that payment should be and and because I The twenty seven twenty eight fiscal year for measure P is a spend a year because you're going to draw down or projecting the drawdown of that twenty million dollars to go to the police station. That drawdown in of itself negatively affects the ability for measure P to afford. And so we are adjusting the level of that payment for measure P to general fund. And so that's why you're seeing that number drop. But that's also why you're seeing it go back up is because once we make the payment towards the police department, then things get back to normal. Hopefully that makes sense. I know it's a really complicating one. No, I appreciate that.

Thank you. That's kind of all I had. Again, I'd like to see an increase in our homeless task force with code enforcement. That was very well put together, you guys. And I certainly appreciate everything everybody does. Okay, that's all I have.

Councilman Godin.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, I do have. First, I just have a question for clarification on page eight. Mr. Metzler, there's a section that says pass through at 9.1% on a subsequent slide. You said that that was residual property taxes. Are we looking at that same thing here?

Excuse me.

Page 8, slide 8?

Yeah, they're actually two different things.

Okay. Could you give me the definition of what this one is?

The pass-through? Yeah. Ms. Kuhn, can you do that for me, please?

We are playing those out for you.

One second, please. Or maybe I have it.

Pass-throughs.

OK. Those are for the enterprise funds. So we have the debt service from the SLA again. The debt service that we receive from VITA is a big portion of that. And we call that a pass-through when we receive those funds. And then taxable revenue from development property. So it is attributed back to the dissolution of the successor agencies. OK.

OK. My next question will be for the general fund reserve. Let me see. It doesn't have a page number. I'm guessing this is page 12. So my question is going to be regarding the general fund reserve level decreasing significantly through 2031. I understand your explanation. I understand that we're only required to have a 17% level of reserve. But I am concerned with the deficit going down so quickly. So what is it that we can do to slow down or stop the drain?

So certainly to stop the drain, certainly additional revenue, finding additional revenue sources, that would certainly help. We'd certainly curtail expenditures or programs or potentially even cut capital. Those would be your easy answers over the course of time. I think it is important to note, and though we didn't highlight it as clearly as we did last year because there was an increased dependency upon cash, but we did touch on it a little bit, just the comparable between budgeted and actuals. We have a pretty good HISTORY OF THE ACTUALS COMING IN MUCH LOWER THAN, AND SO WHILE THESE ARE CONSERVATIVE FORECASTS, YOU KNOW, THERE'S CERTAINLY AN EXPECTATION THAT THE ACTUALS ARE GOING TO COME IN, THE ACTUAL EXPENDITURES ARE GOING TO COME IN LOWER, AND YOUR ENDING, YOU KNOW, RESERVE LEVEL BALANCE SHOULD BE HIGHER, BUT THESE ARE THE MOST CONSERVATIVE JUST BASED UPON BUDGETED FORECAST. BUT THE SIMPLE ANSWER WOULD BE FINDING ADDITIONAL REVENUE SOURCES OR STARTING TO CURTAIL SOME OF YOUR EXPENDITURES.

So we're looking at a projected 38% decrease would an added measure affect that number significantly.

So the answer would be yes, if you took that measure on and actually combine the funds with your general fund absolutely it would it would it would spike that number up okay.

And so, then I my last question would be very similar to this, we see the same thing happening with measure P, we see that steady decline. So how can we is it's going to be similar to the same answer, but a little bit different right because measure P funds or measure P funds So how do we stop that decline.

Two things. You're hoping for actual revenues to come in higher than projected. You've got very, very conservative revenue growth projections of 1%. And, of course, curtailing the expenditures.

So do we have anything in place plan-wise to curtail the decline at this point?

Not at this point, no.

Okay. Thank you. That's all I have, Madam Mayor. Thank you.

Councilwoman Mora?

OK, well, thank you, staff, for this very extensive itemized report. And so my questions might be a little bit silly, but they're just things that I noticed. So first, with fire and police, public safety, there was a decrease in our charges for service. Can someone explain to me what that is? So over the years from 2024 to the projected for 2027, and that's for both police and fire.

What page are you on?

um well it's not necessarily on the slide but it's in our book and it's in the agenda so this is going to be 269. let's see so if i click on police department or fire department both of them and their itemized lines show department revenues by types and there's like charges for service and there's like a significant decrease across for police department and fire department so i just don't know what that means or why um page 269 of the agenda but that's water okay 209 right here this one the agenda book this one the big one

No, it's the actual council agenda packet that is up on your screen. So it would be, I think, what page did you say it was again?

209. 209.

209 in the book.

Is there a title to that page, member council?

Yeah, it's just the beginning itemized for the department and your page prior for the fire department.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So it says like department revenues by type and then it has Charges for service, so it says fiscal year 2024 is like a million and 54 this year, you know projected in fiscal year 27 it's 959. But it goes across if I continue to look at the next fire slide for division revenues by type charges for service are significantly decreasing in the fiscal year of 2027.

I think I see it now. Over the course of time, it's not a huge decrease, maybe 100,000 over the couple of years, but could that be for strike teams?

Yes.

Strike team reimbursement. So those would be reimbursables, which is really dependent upon the actual call out by the fire department for mutual aid in other locations of the state. So it's likely representing, even though it's not a big decline over time, It sounds like there was less call out over time.

So on 212, it shows charges for service in 2024 was $1,054,000, and then it goes down to $57,000. Let's see, for police and fire. So yeah, so this is fire. So I'm just wondering what charges are service. So police and fire, both charges for service decrease or just reimbursements for using their services?

I was answering the question to fire. So are we moving on to police?

Yes.

Okay, so what pages of police were you at?

202. So there's a decrease for charges for service. So I'm just wondering why charges for service for both police and fire are decreasing over the last couple of years.

So on 202, we're looking at charges for service from $247,000 in 2024 dropping to $81,200 forecasted as budget for 2027. Mm-hmm.

I'm just curious, because a significant part of our budget goes to our public safety, and I'm just wondering why charges for service are decreasing.

Sure, yeah.

But we're paying more, so over time.

Yeah, we'll get you an answer here.

We can definitely itemize that for you and give you a breakdown.

OK, that's fine. And then another question I had, and I just wrote this down so I don't have a slide, but it's just our employees. So 26 title changes, we only netted six. 26 title changes, is that like internal promotions, or what kind of title changes for employees are we talking about?

And promotion would be something different. If it's title change, that's probably reclassification, perhaps reevaluating the job description, comparing to the duties, finding that the duties have actually turned into something different than the actual job description.

So like did we create a new job description, or they just took the place of a vacant job description?

It likely could include the creation of a new job description.

OK. And then um and then this again, this is my notes, so I don't have a slide so i'm looking at wherever we had our population prediction from 2026 for this year it showed about a decrease of 1500 people, but yet we have a. 1500 lots you know that are in the plan so we're looking at a population decrease over the time, but yet we're increasing our housing.

So I don't know which slide the housing population was on so the population numbers are sourced by the Department of Finance and so we're basically just pulling their numbers not sure the exact source but. What you saw between the actual population numbers and the actual housing development their their their apples and oranges population would be based upon what's existing here currently, whereas. The actual track development that was a part of the forward look conversation, which is something that's coming, and so I think the point in in showcasing that is. Notwithstanding the population that you see currently being pulled from the Department of finance numbers. With the track development that's in the pipeline, you can definitely foresee the population growth increasing once those new homes come online.

Okay. And those were the only questions that I had. Thank you.

And we'll follow up separately on that charges for service for police unless we have the answer.

It was the charges for service and the investment income also went down. So that whole story.

INVESTMENT INCOME IS EASY TO ANSWER. THAT HAS MORE TO DO JUST WITH THE INTEREST RATES THAT WE RECEIVE ON THE MONEY IN OUR ACCOUNTS. NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU.

COUNCILMAN IRVING.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU, MADAM MAYOR. FIRST OF ALL, I WANT TO SAY TO STAFF, I APPRECIATE YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK, ESPECIALLY THE BUDGETING. and putting together and pulling together all the things necessary to put this document together. It's a balanced budget, so kudos to you. And I appreciate, I just appreciate the willingness to pour into the document because I know it took hours to put this together. And from my perspective, I can tell there's a lot of communication and collaboration amongst professionals here. And to me, those are key elements in moving an organization like ours forward. So I appreciate you. I see you. And you are valued. I'm a big person. I mean, a big, not a big person. I'm actually short. I'm a big picture kind of person. So as I looked over the presentation and tried to digest the information, and I'm trying to synthesize all of this, I have scattered notes. So please bear with me. I know I said I was a big person. I am big, I think, but I'm short in statute. So anyway, what caught my attention was I understand that we're going to dip into deficit spending for the general fund. But as I listened to Mr. Metzler's presentation, we have surplus monies that we will rely on to, if you will, to serve as a safety net. Is that correct, Mr. Metzler?

That is correct.

OK. So for me, right now, the big picture or the thing that I have in my mind is this $865 million need assessment and the concept of population growth. What caught my attention was on page 11. You spoke about a relationship or interdependence between the top three revenue SOURCES AND INTERDEPENDENCE WITH, WELL, FOR ME, I SYNTHESIZE THIS TO BE PUBLIC SAFETY. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT CONDITIONS COULD IMPACT PROPERTY TAXES AND SALES TAXES IN SUCH A WAY THAT, YOU KNOW, WE'RE MONITORING IT, THAT IT MIGHT CAUSE AN UNEXPECTED SITUATION. I WASN'T GOING TO CALL IT A CATASTROPHE.

But can you can you elaborate on that when I can, I think the easy answer is is any form of recession that certainly could impact one or both of those I think that's the easy answer I think one thing that's actually worked in our favor because I will admit that. the revenues that you see for sales and property tax of 59%, almost 60%, and comparing that to the total cost of police and fire in previous, which in this budget is 53%. 53 versus 60% I will tell you in previous budgets That gap was narrower. It's actually been widening over the last few years So that's actually a good thing meaning that that you've actually seen a bigger growth in your property tax and sales tax in relation to your police and fire costs and that's largely due to having experienced a Increased amount of property tax coming through from the whole dissolution stuff and that was difficult to forecast, but certainly something that we were very. You know, appreciative of when it happened, but currently we're at a status where that gap is bigger than than what it used to be. And so I think we're okay, but we're still going to continue to monitor it, but to answer your question again. If there was a recession to where discretionary something that affects discretionary spending. Of course, if discretionary spending goes down, it's very likely that there's a direct relationship between that and sales tax. And, of course, property tax property tax is much broader I mean you've got a property tax generated throughout the entire 75 square miles commercial industrial and residential so you've got some diversity in the mix of us. But you know, since we've experienced in our lifetime before, and we remember 2008 2009. You know if you did have some type of recessionary effect that really, really impacted home values to where property owners were going out and doing reassessments like they were back then. If you see something like that dramatically from year to year that could certainly impact and push your property tax revenues down and so. I think that's where in terms of just monitoring the economy, those would be the areas that I would focus on, and of course, if you see something like that happening that's when. you know, we probably should be worrying a little bit to say, okay, how's that affecting sales tax? How's that affecting property tax? And if, if it is, then we may need to course correct a little bit on the expenditure side sooner, as opposed to, you know, how this budget forecast.

Okay. I guess it piqued my interest because when we talked about population growth and we're talking about services growth, there's no other way to put it means expansion. And so, um, You repeatedly during your presentation spoke about the cost of law enforcement, potentially you monitor it because it could outpace the general fund. And so with regard to the population growth, I want to know what kind of impact the scenario that you painted just now, could that have on public safety? Because those are essential for quality of life. So I just wanted to, I wanted to get a good picture or put the possibility of what that could be it looks like we're in pretty good shape, at least for what we have to spend versus what we have coming in. But again, we, we have a daunting task to address population growth and expansion and services.

yeah and we're population growth, you know the part of that that that makes me worry it's it's it's just a cautious optimism, if you will. You know the population growth, I think, is is good because, of course, you know that does you know bring revenues that do help the city provide services but. At the same time, what we've seen and experienced is that the population growth does create demands for additional services. And if we're just looking at public safety, because that's probably the simple one, you know, population growth is going to have a correlation to service costs, you know, whether they're police or fire or medical. And so the more and more people that we have coming to Victorville and the increased demand for the service calls, where that likely is gonna impact us when we're looking at a budget, for example, is gonna be, do we have enough people in the field? Do we have enough engine companies actually in position to be able to respond to that increased level of calls? And so that's where we have to be certainly aware of what the impacts of population growth is gonna have in terms of our current service levels.

Thank you for entertaining me on that, because I look for patterns and trends, and I couldn't help but ask, well, what if? So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. Mr. Metzler, page 13 of your presentation, it shows the fire department. CONTRACT GOING UP BY 10%, BUT YET WHAT WAS SHOWN TO US TUESDAY NIGHT, IT'S GOING UP 6% THIS YEAR AND A POSSIBLE 10% NEXT YEAR.

I MEAN, I KNOW IT'S OUT OF OUR CONTROL, BUT I'M SORRY, YOU'RE ON PAGE 13 AND YOU SAID THE SHERIFF'S CONTRACT. 38.95 AND THEN IT GOES UP TO 40.

The figures that were given to us Tuesday night said it could possibly go up 6% and then 10%. I understand sheriffs is out of our control together. We get the bill and that's what the bill is.

Yeah. Let me just do the math on that real fast. So yeah, it looks just roughly year over year. That's about a 5% increase. And so there were other factors that certainly went into this year's increase. I think this year's increase was closer to 8%, and that had a lot to do with the risk pool and the liability costs associated with the risk pool. And so at least what we've programmed forward, it looks like 5% from 26-27 to 27-28. And that's based upon what's known to us in the MOU that exists amongst the sheriff professionals.

Are we locked into the contract 132, whatever it is, for the PD? If their ask starts coming in at what we can afford, are we locked into 103 full-time deputies?

We're not locked in. In fact, there is a process that begins typically in April, end of March, but typically in April with the sheriff's office where we actually start meeting with him. He does host all the managers. And there is a process where not only do we start reviewing these numbers, we're allowed to take these numbers back, start figuring out how they fit into our budget. And as for example, in this particular year, I think it was I think it's coming up. When is the deadline to have final positions? I think the point is they give us a period of time to report back as to do we want to maintain the existing service level, do we want to add to it, or do we want to take away from it? So we do have a process where we can, if we get to a point where things get bad, you know, money gets tight, for example, we can cut back if we wanted to.

If we don't have other funding sources available. Okay. On page 19, fire, is the new ambulance contract and the 911 dispatch and center, does that come from fire or that comes from something totally different?

Ambulance wouldn't be in here. That's a JPA-related cost and operation with CONFIRE. But I'm sorry, you said dispatch?

The 911 dispatch center we get charged per calls and this and that and I mean we get a bill like Because we have the second most calls.

Yeah, we do budget that in fire.

Okay. All right. Let's go to page 27 The street lighting district is going to share the fund that the every resident is sharing as these bills are going through the roof You know that $561 surplus might disappear after this year.

Yes, and I think that's, I did have some notes on that here.

There it goes.

Okay, yeah, you can hear me now. Uh, so yeah, the street light fund, uh, fund for, I'm sorry, 200 was going up $4 and 40 cents. And yeah, my notes here, I'm sorry. Yes. My notes are, um, That that's actually an 18% increase which which sounds like a big increase it's going from $24 and 28 cents to $28 and 68 cents and that's on the annual basis and the increases are due to a 12.6 increase in 2025 for Edison rates. 5.63 increase that's approved with the CPU C for 2026. And then also an expected increase of 5.11% in 2027. So certainly Edison's electrical costs that they pass on to us that they charge us basically, to eliminate those light standards. They've gone up quite a bit.

Quite a bit. Okay. So that surplus might disappear next year.

Well, and then that's in fact why we're we're recommending the rate increase that we're recommending is to try to maintain some type of unencumbered fund balance, so we can actually take on the capital, such as adding new lights new standards like standards.

Page 32 of your. PRESENTATION. I THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I SEE IN THE BUDGET IS $80,000 FOR CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. BUT I ALSO SEE HERE SEASONAL DECOR. DO YOU MEAN CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS OR NO, YOU MEAN LIKE HALLOWEEN AND THINGS LIKE THAT? OR IS PUBLIC WORK LOSING US?

NEW SPEAKER THOSE ARE THE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS.

NEW SPEAKER SO THEY'RE MOVING OVER TO THE CITY MANAGER SIDE?

JUST BEING BUDGETED. I THINK IT'S JUST BEING PROGRAMMED OUT OF OUR BUDGET. NEW SPEAKER OH, OKAY.

SO PUBLIC WORKS CAN SPEND YOUR MONEY. NEW SPEAKER YES. NEW SPEAKER ALL RIGHT.

NEW SPEAKER THOUGH I MAY GO OUT THERE AND HELP THEM.

NEW SPEAKER I GOT YOU. PAGE 31, I MEAN, I'M SORRY, 41. I THANK YOU FOR OFFERING 3% for the employees. But over the last five years, the CPI has gone up 24.5%. And we've only given them 22%. Is there a way we can look at at least a 3.25%? Because the CPI for this year was 3.10%. And we're offering 3%. But the last five years, we're still 2.5% behind the curve.

We look we always look at a number of scenarios and then we also look at trying to maintain fairness and equity, certainly with the representatives as well. But in our case, when it comes to recommending compensation, we're actually looking at the effect of the entire package. And so the package also includes the benefits. And so certainly we have we evaluate the potential of going higher, but we're also trying to balance out what can we do to make meaningful enhancements to the benefits. So we looked at both and effectively making the budget work the way we did. That's where the numbers came in, was at the 3%, and that's why we're recommending it.

Okay.

So can you show us a 3.25 at the final? No, it has to be something voted on.

We can certainly run numbers and calculate the impact and present that for your consideration.

OK. Page 42, positions. Any of the positions being deleted? There isn't somebody currently, and I'm going to use Public Works. Public Works is going for 181 to 180. And then you did touch on it by saying it was

maybe an error in bookkeeping we're auditing the the position control and that's kind of where we're finding is we think there may be an error there but we're still we're still uh confirming that okay and then any um building all of their five positions are being moved uh it's six it's six from from the fire prevention side that was supervised by building they're they're now moving over to be supervised by the fire department

And then community services gaining four positions total.

That is correct.

OK.

I still got a couple more stickies. Page 47. The projects for the homes. And I know I'm going to say the acronym wrong. CDF that we have is a CDF or CFD or CFD CFD Or all these homes eligible to all these tracks eligible to go in it I'd have to check

Probably not all of them I think it's safe to say not all of them, because I have to believe that a number of these tracks. I got entitled before we actually put the cfd in place, but certainly those that got entitled after the cfd they would have been conditioned to to enroll in the cfd okay.

Are they have any se troubles that we've heard statewide.

I see. Mr sluggers shaking his head yes. You want to come up, Joe, and kind of share your perspective on that?

Yes, is the simple answer to that. A number of our different track developers are running into some issues with utility availability with Edison specifically. Pacific is a case study in that, and we've actually reached out to them to try to get the details on that.

Okay. So I could put the brakes on some of these communities that have been presented to us.

Yeah, I would say that it's had that effect on some that are being developed now and is already having that effect on some that are in entitlement and seeking to be What about target center.

I wouldn't want us to be empty like a city, a neighboring city to us that had the stores already built and signs up and everything. And they were saying they had no electricity.

They have not specifically cited concerns with that yet. As a matter of fact, I've not heard that with any of our commercial developers yet either. It's happening rampantly on the residential side, but not so much commercial.

All right. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

Can I ask Mr. Slayers? If it's residential and perhaps the majority of them are kind of at the peripheries is it more due to lack of infrastructure existing out there to support it electric infrastructure to where it's just taking time to get new infrastructure out there.

The capacity of the infrastructure, I would say, is what's being cited specifically with Pacific Pacific communities, as well as some of the others that are in development so. The local infrastructure, I think, is there in most cases. But the capacity to produce electricity is what they're citing. They're requiring studies and things like that to justify it and, in some cases, saying that it could take up to four or five years to establish that availability.

So we're being told homes that are already built. OK. Thank you, sir. Can I reference the book, Mr. Metzler? Page News told us 324 and 325, all the CIP. It's calling it a Bear Valley Road improvement. From where to where? And what are they doing? There's like a whole bunch of departments, not departments, budgets being hit for Bear Valley Road improvement. For instance, up at the top, up at the top, 325, Five down. One, two, three, four, five, six down. So that's how it just says it. Bear Valley Road improvement. There's a whole bunch of them that are taking the hit.

Your time is up.

Can I? Council, can I finish? Yes. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you.

You already went.

And so, do you have your, you don't have your book? And so, at least what i'm reading here Freddie and maybe this can help so. bear valley road improvement and there's a fun description that says diff storm fee no north and central.

there's a whole bunch. it's taken from storm drain.

If I may good evening Madam Mayor Members of Council, there is a project that we have budgeted it's west of highway 395. We had already budgeted essentially half of a project between Monte Vista Road and Bellflower. We are budgeting the other half so that we can design it and construct it as one phase. So the limits are from Highway 395 all the way to our city boundary at Monte Vista Road. And it does include a little bit of road widening to be able to account for turning movements at the intersections, as well as some coverts to be able to get stormwater from one side of the road to the other side of the road. And that's why you see the Improvements being budgeted for multiple funds.

OK. And if I may ask one more question. CIP Dog Park, also 325. I read it was at Evadel? Excuse me? CIP Dog Park? Correct. Did we check any other park, like Sunset? It had to live over there.

That's for Donna.

So we already have a CIP project on the books for, I believe it's called West Side Dog Park. The Evadel Dog Park was actually a CIP that was on the books when we started our Evadel Park renovations under the Prop 68 grant. And it fell off at one time. We didn't roll it forward. So it's being brought back. So it was an existing project already at one time, but there is a Westside dog park under consideration as well.

Okay, with the funds available already for you because you said it fell off the current statement.

Correct. Okay.

I have more but I'll, I'll quit mad American I reclaim some of my time.

Yes, yes.

Yes, go ahead. Easy question. Hey, The mayor brought up CFD, and I meant to ask something about that prior. Do the CFD futures, did they factor in to any of the infrastructure, fire department, sheriff's department, and all that? Did we factor that in at all? I know you said some of the lots just haven't been developed yet, but I'm just curious.

There are a number of projections that they put in there. The actual collection for the CFD is really intended to pay for the O&M, not the hard cost of the infrastructure, unless there's an actual infrastructure CFD added to it. But ours is just for the O&M, the cost to maintain the roads. That's what I mean.

Was that factored into future in the budget? Or it's just too soon since that just went in?

It's too soon. There's certainly an evaluation on a project by project basis as to how much road they're building. And there's calculations that determine what their responsible share is going to be. OK, thank you. That's all I have.

I have more questions, but I'm out of time.

Can I just ask one important one?

Mr. Metzler, it shows on our property tax dollar breakdown at the bottom. Flood, and if I can show you.

Please speak into a microphone.

Page 11 in our book, all the way down at the bottom, it says Victorville Water District 1. I don't know if we're entitled to money and we're not getting any, but it says zero.

So yeah, so this is just an excerpt. This is actually a breakdown of how the 1% property tax is divided and why it's even listed being zero unless there's a number further out beyond the decimal. I don't know. Okay. But this would have been taken directly from the property tax rolls.

Okey-dokey. And I have nothing else. Anybody else with time left?

If I might, just to expand. So we were talking about the CIP. As you dive deeper into the CIP, there's deeper into that section, there's actually much... much more detailed descriptions of what a lot of those projects are and so I know we didn't cover them all but there's actually a Dissertation on pretty much each of those so that you can understand exactly what the expenditures going towards Mr. Messler if I may we have information to answer councilmember Morris question the fluctuation and fire revenue has to do with fire prevention going and

Leaving the fire department coming back in so there's fluctuation and the revenues that you're going to see there and the decrease from the sheriff's is a decrease in towing fees.

And so the towing over the course of the last couple years we've changed how we've handled the towing contracts and the revenues derived from that we. Up until a couple of years ago we administered that through the sheriff's department. We actually changed that to be administered through code. And so likely that money that you see going down on the sheriff side on the code side because we restructured how we do it. You'll actually see if you were to compare apples to apples, you'll actually see it on the code side going up.

Thank you.

Nobody else has any other questions. to you, Mr. Mentzler, and your executive staff, and the staff that put in even five minutes into this. I remember what it was like. Thank you very much for all your hard work. Thank you very much for the presentation. And it is 6.50, and this meeting's adjourned.