City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. The term now is 418 on May 14, 2025. And I would like to call for the meeting. This is a special meeting about study session. So at this time, meeting call to order. Madam Clerk, would you please go ahead and take a roll call?

Thank you. Mayor Nguyen?

I'm here.

Vice Mayor Monzo?

I'm here.

District 1, Councilwoman Van West? District 3, Council Member Nguyen.

Here.

District 4, Council Member Nguyen. Mayor, you have a quorum with District 1, Council Member Fan West, and District 4, Council Member Nguyen, absent.

Staff, can I get an idea of, did they inform, what about the other council, did they inform you prior to the meeting? to be here late or are they going to attend the meeting?

yes so councilman fan west had expressed earlier that she wasn' t going to be able to make today' s meeting regardless and councilman nguyen he' s running late right now.

thank you very much. So salute to the flag today is going to be vice mayor manziel and then invocation by district three councilman nguyen please stand.

Ready, begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please remain standing. Heavenly Father, we ask for your guidance as we meet tonight to conduct business of our city government. Help us keep in mind that we are here to serve the people of Westminster and enable us to make our decisions so that we may do what is best for all of the citizens we represent. Amen.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Manzo and then Council Member Mark Nguyen, and for the sale of the flag and the invocation. At this time, I would like to ask the Madam Clerk to go ahead and read the instruction for the oral communication. And I just want to remind everyone that this is oral communication for study session only. And the topic for today is fiscal year of 2025-2026 proposed budget.

thank you mayor this is the time of the meeting that members of the public may address the city council regarding any items on the agenda unless otherwise extended by a majority vote of the city council comments shall be limited to three minutes per speaker any person wishing to address the city council in person should complete a green speaker slip that is provided at the entrance to the council chambers and submit the card to the city clerk when your name is called please step to the podium at that time and state your name and city of residence for the record we have one speaker tonight terry raines

Hello, I hope you all reviewed the entire report and are prepared to have a robust discussion today and ask intelligent and thought-provoking questions unlike years past. Council members are not accountants. This information should be presented at an executive summary level in an easy-to-read and understand format. Starting with, provide dollar and percentage differences between FY25... estimated actual in the proposed 26 budget only dollar variances between FY25 adjusted budget and estimated actual are shown the proposed fiscal year 26 budget cannot be analyzed easily without them key variance notation should be on every schedule staff is seeking direction on the supplemental request list should be the first attachment not the last some verbiage justification but no workloads workload stats except for the one request why the request amounts are fully burdened costs so why not make that clear and number the request for easy reference. Council, this is not an all or nothing. You must vet each request independently on its own merit. Number one, water accountant one, 90,000. Ask who is doing all this work now. Yes, regulations are ever-changing and meters are being changed out, but most of the tasks are already being handled by current staff, right? Did the city just start shutting off water for non-payment? Need workload stats. Two, police services dispatch manager, 148,000. Three and four, two full-time parking enforcement officers, 115,000. Absolutely. Ask for details of the part-time wage reduction cited. How many officers will remain part-time, if any, and what daily coverage will be? Need workload stats. Five, upgrade two part-time water maintenance helpers to one full-time water tech, 15,000. Ask, will anyone have to be laid off going from two bodies to one with different job descriptions? Begs the question. Six, upgrade one part-time water admin assistant to full-time, 53,000. Ask, who is doing all the work now? Can this upgrade be justified? Need workload stats. 7. Convert 40 hours of part-time CS coordinator wages to one full-time admin assistant, $40,000. Ask, will anyone have to be laid off or are the positions vacant now? 8. Upgrade one part-time building inspector to full-time, $76,000, the only request presented with limited workload stats. Ask, will anyone have to be laid off? This building inspector upgrade seems reasonable, unlike many planning requests in the past. Vacancies are normal, budgeting all budget positions at 100% is not. Essentially padding the budget, the Government Finance Officers Association agrees. The artificial salary savings are then used to fund additional spending without formal budget appropriation. It's concerning to see $9 million of reserves used over five years to balance the budget, even with Measure Y and Measure E revenue. council you must take this budget seriously and scrutinize all spending and prioritize approving new revenue stream projects you can' t just keep adopting the status quo budgets and adding positions because the well will run dry say no to status quo. I can't even express how disappointing and scary it is that these two council members are not here for this session and they were not present for the whole strategic plan session. Those are the two most important sessions this council is charged with doing and their absence absences there must be consequences and there will be complaints filed.

Mayor we have no further speakers.

thank you. thank you very much at this time we go into the discussion of fiscal year from 2025-2026 proposed budget.

thank you. I' ve added this slide to our presentation to give you an idea of how to read our budget document. This is a fund statement which is under our fund statements tab in the budget and I' ve labeled each item and this page layout is consistent throughout the document. The next column 23-24 is the prior year revenue and expenditure information and this is actual audited numbers. The next column which is labeled C is the 24-25 adjusted budget numbers for revenue and expense. D is the estimated actual how we' re going to end the current fiscal budget is the same as was presented at mid-year. E and it' s a little blurry on this I apologize but that' s the difference between the adjusted budget and the estimate for revenues and expenditures. F is our proposed budget that we' re reviewing today and G in green is the proposed budget with supplementals. The supplementals only hit three funds so on the fund statement pages only three are under the department headings all have that green column Even if there are no changes If you go further down the page H is the revenues so this is the detail for this particular phone fund on revenues I Would be the expenses salary and benefits maintenance and operations Capital outlay we finally are next we have transfers we then go down to K, which is the change in our position and we' re going to be looking at is the balance between the year and the end of the year so our increase or decrease of our balance and finally l and this slide is to give you an understanding of the components of the city budget the general fund accounts for most services that people associate with the city public safety public works park and recreation special revenue funds are for specific purposes and are legally restricted with like gas tax arpa cdbg capital projects funds account for major improvements funded by grants and transfers from other to the westminster redevelopment agency. Fiduciary funds account for resources held for the benefit of parties outside the city in our case it' s the successor agency to the westminster redevelopment agency. Internal service funds provide a service to other departments like building maintenance and this slide shows the same groupings as the previous slide but in a pie chart the total city budget is a hundred fifty four point three million dollars the general fund shown in teal is the largest with ninety point five million or fifty eight percent water shown in gray is the next largest at twenty four point two million or sixteen percent internal service funds total thirteen point seven million capital projects and the federal budget for the first half of this year special revenue funds 7.7 million as i said special revenue funds are from revenues legally restricted or assigned for specific purposes gas tax measure m cbg home arpa frc aqmd and police grants are most of them revenues from these funds total 13.9 million and expenditures total 7.7 million there are transfers to capital projects totaling 9.3 million in the special revenue funds all unspent arpa funds will be carried over to the previous previously allocated projects and must be completely spent by December 31st of 26. The water funds are comprised of the water operating fund water conservation fund and capital projects fund. revenue is budgeted at $23.5 million mostly coming from charges for service and majority of the $24.2 million in expenditures are in pump and basin assessment $8.2 million salaries and benefits $5.2 million maintenance and operations $5.9 million and capital projects are $4 million. The last water rate increase was in February of 2021 and included five years of adjustments through January 2025. There are three new positions requested as supplementals in the water fund totaling $158,000 which will be discussed in more detail later in the presentation. internal service funds are used to account for the financing of goods or services provided by one department to other departments of the city and are funded by department charges on a cost reimbursement basis. The city has five internal service funds motor pool general benefits liability administration information systems and government buildings. The total three of these funds general benefits equipment replacement and information systems are currently below the minimum fund balance policy level of five hundred thousand primarily due to cost for claims and capital projects. Three million is needed to bring the internal service fund group to the recommended minimum reserve level of the five hundred thousand per fund. The proposed budget includes $15 million in capital project requests, $200,000 for lighting projects, $200,000 for storm drains, $315,000 for park improvements, $4 million in water system improvements, $10.1 million for street improvements, and $225,000 in city building and vehicle upgrades and improvements. project is funded by the federal government. These projects are funded with transfers in from special revenue funds water funds and 1.5 million from the general fund which is the economic development fund is also in the capital projects category this fund has 1.3 million in expenditures which includes the vehicle rebate program the ending balance available in the economic based on the current year projections from cowpers it will cost two hundred sixty four point six million dollars to pay off our unfunded pension liability in twenty twenty one years and the annual cost will increase an additional three point seven million through fiscal year thirty thirty one and we would save $12.3 million. Making the total almost $18 million at the annual payment and it will then at that point start to drop slightly as you can see $31.32 goes down a little bit. If the city were to pay this unfunded liability off in 15 years the annual cost would be if we were to pay it off in 10 years the annual cost would be 21.9 million but we could save 45.5 in 2017 the city began setting aside monies and to section 115 trust accounts to help pay for the pension and retiree medical obligations as of March 31st both the pension and the retirees medical trust account had a balance of six point two million dollars the city's retiree medical is currently paid for on a pay-as-you-go basis and the annual payment is $3 million. Both of these trust funds can only be used to pay pension and medical costs and can help in the future with budget shortfalls. Future pension cost projections will fluctuate based on the cal pers investment returns. the total outstanding pension liability at 63024 was 146 million and the 2526 payment is 14.28 million as shown on the previous slide. By paying this unfunded liability payment to CalPERS in July rather than monthly the city is able to save interest and transfer that savings of 462,000 to the 115 trust. the opeb retiree medical trust is held with the california employers retirement benefit trust or serp fund the total outstanding opeb liability at june 30 24 was 43.4 million the annual payment is 3 million and the city transfers 250,000 to the trust annually. general fund proposed budget is the first balanced budget in six years. The general fund is the primary operating fund of the city and accounts for all tax and revenue to provide city services. The budget projections include employee negotiated contracts and this does not include any supplemental requests. The budget with supplemental requests contributes $244,000 to reserves. Revenue projections increased $4.6 million from the prior year and expenditures increased $3.5 million from fiscal general fund revenues as I mentioned are budgeted at $91.2 million. 81% of general fund revenue comes from taxes followed by charges for services at 11% and investment in rental at this slide is going to further break down our largest source of revenue which taxes at $73.6 million. Property taxes are 30% or $21.8 million most of this revenue in this category comes from the property tax in lieu of vlf which is budgeted at $13.7 is shown in the blue pie slice. Our largest source of revenue in this tax category is our locally generated transaction use tax our measures y and e and they contribute 31% or $23 million to the utility users tax brings in 8% or $5.8 million and the remaining sources business license franchise transient occupancy and property transfer tax bring in 6% or $4.3 million. to see what the share of property tax received by our surrounding cities. For westminster we received 7.4% in our general fund which is we receive a 2% tax rate from our community lighting fund which is not shown on this chart. Westminster has one of the lowest property tax shares among orange county cities. Our residents pay the same property tax rate as everyone else but less of the revenue comes back to our city. Most of the property tax collected in our city goes to the only cities lower than westminster are structural fire fund cities meaning they don' t pay for fire services out of their budget. Our 7.4 is $8.2 million and is our second largest source of no I' m sorry the property tax is our second largest source but that' s because it includes the property tax in lieu of This chart shows general fund expenditures by department. Most of the costs are related to public safety. Police at 44.9 million or 50%. Fire is 19.7 million or 22%. General government and public works are 9% each. Community development is 5%. And community services is 4%. this slide shows the estimate for the current year in the first column based on these projections we will end fiscal year 2425 adding 1 million of reserves to the adding 1 million to our reserves the proposed fiscal year 2526 budget adds 624,000 to reserves and the projected ending reserve balance at the end of The next four columns are projections for the next four each of the future years includes 1.5 million in street projects funded from the general fund. It is necessary to continue to fund street related capital projects from our general fund in order to meet our maintenance of effort requirement to continue to receive measure M2 funds. The fiscal year 25-26 street projects are recommended to be funding from savings in fiscal year 24-25 and are included in the current year estimate. the council and community have prioritized city services through the passage of the transaction use tax revenue measures why any Without these measures the city would have been out of funds by fiscal year 2425 which is our current fiscal year as it indicated in the prior study sessions and discuss it discussions the passage of the sales tax measures would provide our community a lifeline as we pursue additional revenue sources through increased retail and development and other economic are the changes from the current fiscal year 2425 budget revenue projections increase 4.6 million property tax projections increase 680,000 sales tax increase 514,000 transaction use tax increase 630,000 charges for service increase 1.7 million fines and license and permits increased $255,000. Expenditures increased $3.5 million. Purge retirement costs increased $1.7 million. Part-time minimum wage increased $141,000. Our OCFA contract increased 4.5% or $616,000. Salary and benefits increased per our MOUs at $1.1 million. this budget will include a public records request line item object 40095 to better track costs associated with the public records request act and the five new full-time positions are requested as the city council the cost for supplementals are shown fully burdened there are eight requests for new positions five in the general fund and three in water. I will summarize each of the community services there's a request for a new full-time administrative assistant position which is replacing two part-time positions to provide consistent and reliable coverage and reduce the long-term costs associated with high term turnover the full-time position costs ninety four thousand six hundred ninety seven and is this offset by fifty four thousand three ninety five of part-time wages the net cost to the general fund would be forty thousand three hundred two dollars to the general fund. In community development there' s a new full-time building inspector position request to replace one part-time position to devote more time to residents construction jobs and assist with trade plan checks. The full-time position costs $113,246 and is offset by $37,300 of part-time wages. The net cost to the general fund is $75,946 there' s a request for a new full-time police dispatch manager to oversee the operations due to technology upgrades changes in dispatching requirements and high turnover the full-time There are also requests for two new full-time parking enforcement officer positions replacing two part-time positions assigned to street sweeping and paid parking enforcement The full-time positions cost eighty five thousand nine hundred each and are offset by fifty six thousand four hundred eighty five of part-time wages These positions have the potential to increase revenue and the net cost to the general fund is one hundred fifteen thousand three hundred fifteen dollars and there are three positions requested in the water fund in finance a new full-time accountant one position is requested to assist with switching of new meters courtesy phone calls on high balance accounts payment plans closed accounts final notices and processing return for a new full-time water technician one position to replace two part-time positions for meter reading and customer service. The full-time position costs $85,360 and is offset by $70,822 of part-time wages the net cost is for a new full-time administrative assistant one position to replace one part-time position to assist with meter exchange cross-connection lead and copper rule revisions break registry demand forecast fire flow and adus the full-time position costs ninety four thousand six hundred ninety seven dollars and is offset by forty one thousand four hundred forty four dollars of part-time wages the net cost for the During the strategic planning meeting on April 28, the City Council made setting priorities for spending transaction use tax, measures Y and E, revenue, and objective. Priorities for allocating any surplus funds could be included in the fund balance policy, which is approved annually with the budget in June. The current policy includes an emergency reserve allocation of 17 percent of general fund operating expenditures. Additional categories could be added to the policy, committing a percentage or dollar amount of the annual surplus. Examples of categories could include reserving money or allocating an amount to future pension costs, infrastructure improvements, or increasing the emergency reserve percentage above 17%. finally staff is looking to the council to provide input and direction on the supplemental budget request and the fund balance policy finding priorities the final proposed budget will be presented for adoption at the june 25th 25 meeting and staff is available to answer questions.

thank you very much at this time I would like to invite the council if there' s any question for staff.

Thanks. The first one I have is... what position are we into? I' m really interested in increasing our reserve levels right now. We' re at 17 percent. As you can see in the coming years we' re going to be having to keep status quo. We' re going to have to keep pulling from the reserves.

So our total is above 17%. We have an emergency reserve of 17%. So the emergency reserve totals 15.4 million, and then we have unassigned balance of 30.6 million, making our total projected reserve at the end of the 25-26 year almost $46 million.

Yes, but that's the current one. But in the future years coming, we will be having to get down to, I mean, pretty every year we keep going down, correct?

Yeah, it got down in the projected 29-30 year to 38.9 million. Yeah.

So in order to keep that 17% level, we won't be able to?

We would still make that. You would still make that? It's about $15.5 million. So the $38.9 would still cover that 17%.

But we won't keep our 17% reserve level in there, right?

We will still be there, yes, unless the council chose to remove it, but it's in the policy. But as far as priorities in years of surplus, additional money could be added to that or it could be added to other items on that pension costs, capital projects. It could be put as a reserve or it could be allocated to a project or something like that when we have a surplus to be used in the future.

Okay. Can you go back to page, I think it's 16, 16, 17?

The projections?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. So if this is the one I was speaking, you say that's the reserve, it's dwindling.

So that reserve balance is the total of that reserve balance. 17% is reserved for an emergency, and the remainder is considered unassigned. Excuse me. So right now, the 17% is about $15.5 million. So this, even through 2019, we would still need that.

Can we put that image up on the screen, please?

Thank you. Do you have your budget in front of you?

Mm-hmm.

If you look at page, it's page seven. And if you look at the blue column at the very bottom.

The 45 million?

Right. So that's the 46 million that's shown on this slide in the shaded column. But that 46 million, or 45983, is split between the emergency reserve of and the unassigned. So that emergency reserve would continue just at that same percentage. So every year it's adjusted to 17% of our operating expenditures.

OK. I just don't like seeing it going down. We should be adding, not subtracting. That's my point.

I understand.

So that's something that we need to work on. What was that? Do you see any areas that you'll see that will be getting less revenue like for one example is the mall the revenue that comes out of the mall area right now in the future years?

we have adjusted some of those in our projections and obviously the hope is some of our vacancy buildings and other retail locations will help offset some of that but yes we have already seen some of that flow.

the program is still active? it' s still active yes. We can sign in to see what we' ve spent this year but I don' t

In 23-24, we spent $220,000 on it, and it's out of the Economic Development Fund, and we're running around that same total for the current year, $225,000.

And what was the total funding allocated for that program?

I believe it's, and I'm not 100% sure, but I believe it's $500,000 a year, but I'm not sure on the total. Do you remember the total? We'll look it up.

it' s 500 a year for how many

On our website, actually. OK.

There's a page.

You can get back to me on that. Yeah, we'll get back to you. I apologize. I don't know that off the top of my head.

Okay. And then the next question I have, when is our next day when we're doing our cost recovery fees?

That will be coming to the council on the June 25th meeting with the budget.

Okay.

We're in the process of it right now.

Okay. All right. That's all I got for now, Mayor.

Thank you very much. Anything from Council Member McWane?

Yeah, I saw some of the position on some of the departments going from part-time to full-time. Can you elaborate again on some of the reason why we're going?

Do you have a specific position? I'd have the department answer that.

Like the, what is it, the community department?

The community development or community services?

Community services.

thank you Mr. Chair. thank you good afternoon mayor and members of city council the request is to convert some part-time hours staff that work community services front desk we' ve seen high turnover rate over the last five years and to an effort to be consistent and provide better service to release some of the continual training that our full-time staff has to do with of those hours to a full-time administrative assistant to man our front desk.

Is this the same reason for the other positions in the other departments that are going from part-time to full-time also? the other department? I would defer to those other department heads I would imagine it' s very consistent is that high

they come on board for us specifically we' ve had a number of staff stayed less than a year so once we train them they either move on to somewhere that' s paying slightly bit better or they' ve taken another position within the department.

thank you. may be better off can you go back to the slides has the positions?

I' m sorry.

can you go back to the slide that have positions so that may be better for him to.

this is the first one this was the community service position and the community development position so the full-time building inspector from a part-time. And then the next one where the police positions a dispatch manager and the parking enforcement officers. anything else and then the last one where the water positions the new full-time accountant one position of the water tech one position and the administrative assistant position Yeah So I have another questions just keep it there on slide 121 rank, okay?

My understanding is that right now, as of right now, we have a long period of time. We have a long schedule. for those people who want to install new meters, water meters. And because of that, we actually contracted out to the vendors. So if they want to, if they want to, they can go out and get the vendors and get it quickly. And if they want to wait for the CD, it cost less. But at the same time it took longer for us to fulfill that Well, we if we approve these new positions for As requested do you think that we are going to improve?

the schedule for the water is Meter is done. So we have we have people from Public Works that can address that Okay

concern or be able to elaborate a little bit more on that thank you very much yeah they can actually um explain a little bit more about what the water tech does and what the roles are and who actually does the installations versus hi good afternoon council mayor vice mayor member of council and so the public works department is putting in two requests the first one is to combine or eliminate two part-time position for meter reader and we combine into one full-time And the reason for that is with the part-timers, very similar to what Vanessa mentioned, there's not a lot of reliability or commitment from those staff. It is a high turnover. So with new staff, we have to keep on training over and over, over and over for them to replace these meters. So we believe that with the full-time, you get more vested interests in that position for long term. And then the second position is to eliminate the part-time admin assistant position and combine it to create a full-time. Because again, we have a lot of new mandate from state and federal government. And just to name a few, like the lead and copper cross connection, which we have an ordinance going out tonight. Also, break the registry. They want us to identify any time that there's a water loss. They want to account for it. Also, there's water conservation as well. If you want to hear more detail, we actually have the management analyst, Nolani, live with us tonight. She's in this program for a long time and she can better explain those new requirements that we have to face.

following up on the mayor' s question it had to do with new development. Let' s just say adu' s for example when adu' s are opening up there' s a delay in establishing that connection and a significant delay if they' re going to go with the city option will these positions benefit or streamline or

No, because the first position is for meter reading only. So we have roughly 20,600 meters throughout the city that needs to be read. For one year cycle, we do roughly seven times a year. So we prefer to have full-time staff dedicated to just reading that because that becomes a revenue source for the city. The one you're talking about, ADU, that's different, where developers have the option either to wait for us, city staff, which is we have limited staff, or they can hire their own contractor and then do the installation. Our lead time should be nine months? Nine months. Nine months, yeah.

That's what I have. I have a lot of complaints from the residents that they do the new ADU, and they said that for the city of Westminster, it takes nine months to install the water meter. and I check with staff and I understand that we have to limit it. Just like you said, we have limited staff. And if they want to move quicker, then they can go out and get a contractor to do it for them. Exactly.

We usually streamline the review process for them to submit the plans to us. But as far as staff time, we have so many leaks throughout the week. So for example, this week we have two leaks.

Okay, and my question for you is I understand they compared from city to city for like you know the surrounding city or neighbor city that they do much quicker or faster than we are here in city of Westminster. What can we do in order to improve that process? As far as like city staff do the actual installation? If we need to improve that quicker than nine months that we have currently And will you require more of the staff and how many if there is a requirement so much?

I would say I have to plan internally, but definitely the more staff, the better it will be. The increase in construction crew to perform that work

would be necessary. Do you think adding two more for that is going to work to help? Of course it's help, but you know, but then my question, the next question to you is by adding two more manpower to that, of course we are going to spend money to pay for that. Do you think that we have enough projects to recover that cost?

let me discuss internally and get back to you with that manpower, but definitely two would help.

Thank you very much. Do you have any idea if we go for two, what is the cost of two manpower?

The tech one costs $85,360.

for one. 170 a year?

That' s a fully burdened cost, yes.

I know that the city of Westminster is doing a lot of ADUs. Right now we consist of a lot of ADUs. There' s quite a few. I know. It' s a good thing. I have people come to us for that but at the same time they complain about the long process of getting the water meter installed. the cost of the construction. So why don' t you do the cost comparison and see if we can offset that and you can come back and present it to the council. thank you very much. can you go back to I have the same concerns as vice mayor menzel. Seeing that we are getting into the reserve is not what we want to see. I believe you probably go over this already but I want to make sure why we are going from that we have to go into the reserve we have to get into the reserve.

quite honestly a large part of the expenditure increase is our unfunded liability costs from pers and those change based on the interest rate but you could see on the I forget the percentages, but there's the big jump in fiscal year 28-29, and they project a 9% increase that year. So every year, even if we're keeping costs low, that was that other slide that I showed you. You can see these large increases. So this is a We have to pay this we don't have any choice It's our unfunded liability and purse tells us what we have to replace or to pay This is why we're putting some money in those the 115 trusts like I mentioned so in those years where we're Where we have a deficit we may want to pull some of this this money here the six point two million in each of these we could pull some of that to cover our budget in those years when the pers are the the current year we could put additional money there and use that money for those costs that increase in the future. Some of the funding priorities might be to put additional funding in the 115 trust to cover years when we aren' t as positive as we would prefer to be.

I understand beside that I believe there is an increase from OCFA with 4.5%. That doesn' t help. With this protection that you have for the next five years do you have any ideas or staff came up with any idea that we can recover or trying to get some revenue in. I know there are a few projects that we have in place, which is the billboards or the Westminster Mall or some of those. Do you think that it's going to help?

they will be in here as soon as we can project for them as part of the strategic plan there were a couple items for us to bring back to the council on some additional revenue sources so that will be coming back to you as well but we don't have those we won't have these items in our projection until we have a good idea of when they're starting and the dollar amount.

but do you have any plan that lay out that it would help to recover the cost if we implement these projects? Let' s say an example, I know that the cannabis they brought up a couple of times already and they projected the revenue. If we were to implement the program will it help with the

thank you. thank you. any additional revenue will help this for sure and that is one of the items that will be brought back to the council and I

Okay, and then they have a chance to present it to us.

Yes, the ones that were discussed at the strategic plan. We'll bring those back. Okay.

I have a follow-up question. Thank you, Mayor. So back to the Mayor's point on trying to be here in reality. you know with a lot like those items at the mall and the billboard i mean they're i mean they're we don't even have a date right set right now so i mean we're talking you know you can honestly say it's more than five years from now you'll see anything and as you can see every year You know, we'll be dipping into the reserve. And the quickest, out of all those examples that we had looked at for possible new revenue, I mean, to me, since the mayor brought up the cannabis, that is probably the quickest source of future revenue. Would you guess to say yes on that? I mean, if you're looking at a timeline, I mean, I don't know. Adolfo I don't know. I mean if you're looking at anything you Permitting building. I mean the mall hasn't even it's not even nowhere near any thing as far as starting anything. So that's How would even gets to see eight years down the road? You know before you see any revenue out of there and the billboard I think they're not going to start any construction this year and I'm what I understand they're gonna start construction if they get all their entitlements hopefully next year in 2026. You' re talking about construction. It would be a long time before you see any revenue coming out of that.

there' s a huge upside to those topics you brought up but they' re not immediately around the corner.

that' s my point they' re further time is not on our side obviously we need to as a council and staff we need to find a way to quickly generate as much revenue as possible to make up some of these losses and we' re going to increase with our unions. That' s coming up. The numbers you had on the slide, those are going to change as well. Chances are expenditures are going to increase. They' re not going to decrease.

That' s correct. I do have some future projections for expenditures and revenue. I do have increases, but they' re fairly conservative on both the revenue and the expenditure side.

So yeah, time is not on our side. We need to do what we can to help ourselves and give us the best chance of success. And then also, too, the other thing that' s hurting us and right now we have a cost savings of vacancies but those vacancies are hurting our service that we provide because as the mayor mentioned that to me nine months for a water meter I would say unacceptable, but it shouldn' t be taking that long. If you don' t have the staffing, there' s very little you can do. The other department that I find that it' s really hurting us right now because it' s understaffed is our community development. That is revenue generating department that we need that we need to do better and that' s another area that we need to do better in. get into the position where we hire more code enforcement officers. Right now we' re really understaffed on that position, that department I should say, and that is also hurting us. We need to do better on that as well. that' s all I got for now.

I know you have a date that you' re coming back for approval what date is that? June 25.

We still have June 10.

I have a question can you go back to the

Also, Vice Mayor, to answer your question, the vehicle rebate program is $3 million over five years. We have spent $454,000 for two years, a little over two years.

$450,000?

$21,000. $21,000, not $21,000. $21,000? This is $21,000. Oh, then number 16 then.

$16,000?

Yeah, $16,000. The projections? This is the one.

Okay.

Okay, I know that... you said all the projects we mentioned billboards cannabis and all those projects we were looking forward to you don' t have it here because what happens if you can you establish something like this with the best estimate you can have from those programs and I believe Well, I think we could- Before the date that we are going to- Same date. Same date.

Same date. I believe we could make a list of potential revenues that we're looking at in the future and give you years when those might be implemented. Yes. I hesitate to put anything in a projection like this that's not-

I understand, but just best estimate so that we can understand. If we as a council approve these projects, it will offset what we're seeing here.

We certainly could give you something. We could add a line or something that would show you additional revenue options in the future.

Well, so just to kind of jump in, and I understand everyone's concern about the budget. The difficulty about government budgets is we can't really account for money that we don't. have, and certainly some of the projections that are provided, I hear myself echoing right now, I'm sorry. The projections that we have on some of the projects that are coming, they're best estimates. For example, cannabis, a certain group can say they're going to bring an X amount of revenue, but it's really not that. And so I'm reluctant to bring that kind of information as well. Certain areas that we can always look at, I mean, revenues right now, we always project them as very conservative coming in. we can look at maybe a slightly higher increase, assuming that the market is still viable. We can look at revenues being higher, sales tax revenue, for example, being higher than what's currently projected. As far as, we've talked about this in previous meetings where there aren't projects that are going to necessarily bring these big cash outs, which is what's really difficult. It's usually a multitude of different developments and multiple projects. We have You know, we talk about the mall, we talk about, you know, we talk about the mall, we talk about cannabis, you know, with these larger amounts. But we also have other projects in the pipeline that are going through the development phase that are also going to generate monies as well. The only problem is because they're going through the phase, we can't really talk about how much money we're expecting. There's also other, you know, we talked about billboards, we talked about our city billboard program. But as you'll see later on the regular meeting agenda, there are other billboards that are bringing in revenues as well. So it's all these things that are added together. I think if the council has an interest in maybe looking at this a little bit further, taking an account to some of the positions, other supplementals that you're interested in, we can do another study session before the June, the second meeting in June. We can certainly bring some of those numbers back. As far as supplementals, staff every year, we're all very aware and conservative when it comes to our needs things do take longer than others because unfortunately we don't have the staffing to to to basically catch up with the Increased the extremely, you know increased expectations and workload that we have And some departments really see that challenge more than others, you know community services one we've had we went from what three events to like 300 a year Sometimes I feel like that's not an exaggeration, but it's also like the Mac the the magnitude of things as well You know, so there there are a lot other a lot more supplemental requests that were not presented to you because our goal this year was to to present a balanced budget Certainly, you know, that's what the study session is for You know, I understand the ad use and the water meters. We've been doing a lot and that's because I A lot of property owners don't want to pay the contractor, and so we do the best we can to accommodate. But yes, nine months sounds like a long time. Will hiring more reduce that from nine months to two months? I don't know. Will it reduce it down to seven months? Maybe. But those are things we'll have to look at. And then code enforcement, as you know, we've had a lot of changes in code enforcement. we' ve been able to do that? Do we feel like there' s a lot that can be done in code enforcement? Absolutely code enforcement they' re really the eyes and ears of the city and they' re the gate keepers of our city' s enhance and improve that division as well with changes in staff. But we understand the need. But all these needs, they cost money. So we're just trying to balance what we can with what we have. But we can come back to another study session.

I certainly don't think that we need another study session. As we are going through the fiscal year of 2025, 2026, I don't have any problem with that. But down the road, 2026 up to 2029 to 2030, then we have a problem with that. And knowing that there are certain projects and programs that we are going to implement next year, so we can always discuss about it. And, you know, take that into consideration, knowing that, you know, if we are not doing anything else, then we are going to dip into the, you know, the reserve. So I think that that's probably okay for now.

Mid-year is actually a great time for us to look at where we're at, too, as far as, you know, when we're looking into next year's budget cycle as well. Yes, you know, as someone had mentioned, next year we're going to be going into, you know, negotiations as well. And what that looks like may also impact what our expenditures look like. But on top of that, too, there are a lot of expectations in the workforce right now as far as wages. There's battles of minimum wage and fair wage, et cetera, and you know, at different concessions that the workforce has really, it's changed a lot, especially since COVID, right? So it's been very challenging in terms of personnel perspective to kind of tackle those issues. But certainly, yeah, we can come back with another study session. And, you know, we're definitely moving forward with being more aggressive in terms of economic development, bringing in different projects. we' re very focused on that and of course we appreciate the council support and some of the things we' ve been doing over the last three and a half years with just looking at development and mixed use zoning different zoning specific plans and areas we can improve to make ourselves more development and business friendly so that' s always helpful too. This council hasn' t been sitting you have been sitting on your hands and some of these issues that we' you know that that we've had over the years you know it's it's not anyone of this council's fault it's preceded your time for decades so you know we've we've still been moving along the last few decades i mean the last few years thank you for that i just want to say i appreciate you the staffs and i'm really proud of you of staff that really presented us with the

a balanced budget the first time in six years you know that's that's not some nothing that's kind of just brushed aside that's that's huge so appreciate all staff's efforts and i also you know the like you mentioned city manager of all there's more positions obviously that we need but you're trying to balance our budget so i appreciate that and and those positions are they that were mentioned You know, I feel they're all justifiable. I think that they were needed, and, you know, I wish we could do more. There is something else that maybe with the police chief you can get with them. You know, I'm interested in—I think I spoke to you about this before— I don' t think we have enough cameras in our city and that' s something I think that' s really important to keep our residents safe. I don' t know what the cost I don' t know if there' s a number you can get us.

we can add that.

just for information.

we can add that to the next

Okay, in the sense of time, we must have to end this meeting before 5.30 because we have to start with the closed session at 5.30. So it's very informative. We don't have to take any action today. So I just want to thank the staff for all the information presented. And hopefully that you can bring back on the next 26th of June so that we can adopt for the 2025-2026 budget fiscal year. all right is there any other question from council members all right if not then once again thank you very much and i would like to adjourn the meeting here and so we'll come back at 5 30 for the closed session thank you very much