Special City Council Meeting June 9, 2014

0:00:00um are there any staff Communications or announcements okay we will now move on to oral Communications from the public which is an opportunity for members of the public to speak on items that are not on the agenda do we have any we have one speaker Al Miller okay

0:00:20how do you like our new location I like it good evening mayor Abelson council members and staff Al Miller [address removed] I just wanted to follow up my shout out for bike the bridges at your last meeting with a quick thank you for all of the officers that from uh from

0:00:40what I could tell most all of the West County of police agencies as well as the County Sheriff's Office and their police explorer youngsters out there helping and this year they even had a couple of the Special Olympics athletes out there helping them in the support booths

0:01:03uh there must have been I you know you can't count them because there's three races but I'd say there was at least three to four hundred bikers uh and it was a great day they even arranged it so that it didn't pierce the 90 degree Mark in Martinez until after the races most of the races were over

0:01:24and we were now down to the music listening in the beer drinking phase so that was very appropriate on them but more importantly since this is one of the major fundraisers they have for Special Olympics I'd just like to remind everybody that it happens every year and

0:01:40you don't have to be a bicycle Rider to ride 25 or 50 or 100 kilometers whatever they are to take part that uh you can always go to the bike the Bridge's website and make a contribution to this great cause so thank you thank you are there any that's it right yes okay thank

0:02:00you uh there are no presentations this evening uh next we move on to item number five which is adoption of the consent calendar it's all moved second okay uh any discussion okay this is a motion regarding the setting of the general election on November the 4th 2014. uh all in favor please say aye aye

0:02:27in the opposition in the abstentions motion cares unanimously with that we will move on to item number seven there being no public hearings and we will first move on to item 7A which is a concurrent city council public financing Authority pension press board item on

0:02:47the fiscal year 2014-15 and 16 presentation and study session of the budget thank you mayor members of the council I'm Scott Hannan your city manager and I'm here to present our proposed budget for fiscal years 2014 and 15 as well as 2015 and 16.

0:03:14I also want to mention that I have asked all of your senior staff to join me in the in the ballpark here for those who can't see at home because they're very instrumental in putting this budget together as as well as everything we do as a city as I go through through this

0:03:33if you have questions or comments please feel free to jump in otherwise we could do it at the end I would also welcome if I don't cover something or misstep please they should all feel comfortable jumping in also on some of the details as there's a lot of information to cover

0:03:51so having said that as you go through the budget book and you look at particularly if you start with the transmittal letter you'll notice that as I put the budget together I would go back and review what we've done in the prior years and in looking at the past few years it was starting to

0:04:08sound uh very familiar things are tight we're carrying a lot of vacancies State takeaways and and ongoing challenges so I went back a little bit further and I stopped in fiscal year 2007 and I what really struck me was it's not that long ago it's about seven years ago and at

0:04:29that point what we were featuring was the fact that we were expanding our Police Department we were expanding our public works department our Landscape and Lighting assessment District was which is really responsible for our parks and play fields and a lot of our Recreation uses was getting

0:04:46subsidized by over roughly four hundred thousand dollars in the general fund and things were good I think the most striking piece was uh there was a line in there that says that our Redevelopment agency was thriving and as you know at that point the Redevelopment

0:05:01agency was investing in San Paulo Avenue affordable housing the Cerrito theater and had sent money aside to help with both the library the senior center and the public safety building and so ironically as we go through this report we're sitting here with maintaining police vacancies making

0:05:20maintaining Public Works vacancies and no Redevelopment agency and I'll talk more about that so A lot has changed in terms of our financial picture and what we're what we're able to do in spite of some things starting to look up so in terms of what we're going to

0:05:38cover tonight is a budget overview we'll talk about the Strategic plan and look at our accomplishments our challenges and our objectives going forward obviously in the book itself it goes into a lot greater detail but I tried to pick some of the things that I felt were sort of the most important

0:05:59we'll obviously look at our finances our city-wide budget our general fund which is our largest operating fund the assumptions that went into the budget and any other considerations that we we think are relevant for you to consider we'll talk about how our departments are

0:06:15doing and then look at our next steps so moving on we want to make sure that we continue to focus on our strategic plan that was something that the council and the community spent a lot of effort on and as so we want to take every opportunity to remind uh folks what our

0:06:35goals and strategies are and very briefly our goals are to deliver exemplary Services achieve long-term Financial stability deepen a sense of place and Community identity develop and rehabilitate our public facilities and as Community focal points ensure the Public's health and safety

0:06:53and Foster environmental sustainability Citywide hopefully when you review and read the book you'll see how much effort went into aligning our services to those to those goals every year is you know we try to make the budget book a little better and I believe we've done that again this

0:07:11year so in terms of our accomplishments I went through all of the accomplishments in the book and picked out some that were either thematic or uh I felt were considerably important for tonight so some of the things I wanted to talk about um there will be a theme and one of

0:07:29those themes is related to technology in terms of exemplary Services we're trying to put more services online and we're trying to stay ahead of Technology when our technology budget is essentially flat year after year after year and that's I think we're doing a

0:07:45good job I think we can do a better job and I'll talk more about that I'll also talk more about this was the first year that we held four Community meetings to try to get the public more involved in our budgeting process and we thought that was a really valuable effort what is

0:08:02really striking in spite of all of the challenges it's remarkable how much we get done every year as a city it may be getting harder and harder with our vacancies and the financial challenges but but it's still it's still really every year we seem to do a lot of new

0:08:18things in spite of all of that and again the book has a lot more detail and going on in exemplary Services we have expanded our social media presence we are trying to reach out to Residents who don't necessarily want to come to meetings not just by broadcasting

0:08:35um the council meetings but also using social media such as Twitter Facebook and nixel and I strongly encourage folks to sign up for nixel it is a great source of information around Public Safety and Incredibly timely and we've also as we mentioned launched open El

0:08:52Cerrito which is a way we can go to the public and try to collect information on all different topics um our rec department received 11 best of Contra Costa uh awards from parents press magazine and we take a lot of pride in that or we think our programs are As Good As It Gets

0:09:11in terms of financial stability um I won't list all of these grants but as you can see we were very successful uh in terms of long-term Financial stability by using outside source of funds these grants are around many of them are around safe routes to school around Transit around working around the

0:09:31BART stations in addition to the acquisition of the hillside Natural Area again these are all using outside funds again looking back at the recreation department we have we try to do things as effectively as possible and like and and run it as much as a business as possible

0:09:52and we're happy to say that signups and revenue both increased by 10 this past year and when we look at Contracting we look at both is it better to provide Contract Services to to contract out or essentially do it ourselves and in one area rather we stopped Contracting for

0:10:12custodial services and bought it brought it in-house and we think we're getting we're not only doing a better job but we saved forty thousand dollars and um on your next Council agenda you will have the annual school resource officer contract and we're proud to

0:10:27announce that the school board last week approved a hundred thousand dollar increase to the base compensation which hadn't been done for about five years so that obviously goes to the bottom line also related to financial stability once again we want our excellence in

0:10:42financial reporting and we won our excellence in budget reporting so again we we try to do better we try to make the document uh readable and usable that anyone could pick up the book and really know what we're doing and how what our priorities are we issued tax revenue

0:11:01anticipation notes to deal with cash flow that is a pretty normal and common thing for cities to do and our expectation is you'll be uh looking to do that again in the next couple of meetings for next year we will continue to have cash flow problems for the foreseeable future

0:11:19in terms of developing or deepening a sense of place and Community identity we talked a lot this year about our first El Cerrito Stars high school internship program but in addition to that we we have mentioned but we also want to highlight all of what we try to

0:11:37do in the city around volunteering and around internships the police department not only expanded its Explorer program but held at second police Citizens Academy and has identified eight Volunteers in Police Service these all of these efforts are trying to get more

0:11:56people involved in our community that may otherwise not be additionally this past year we started off the grid and we believe uh that it's been incredibly successful it still is uh especially well attended and has really created a vibrant atmosphere on Wednesdays down uh on Fairmont

0:12:21many of you are at uh the groundbreaking last month for the Ohlone Gardens that again was a Redevelopment project that was years in the making but we are we have broken ground on a new affordable housing project and we're really excited about that but it but it also highlights the fact that

0:12:38without our Redevelopment agency it'll be difficult to maybe do that ever again fortunately we have the Eden Project next door at the old tradeway site coming up next again that is a holdover from the former Redevelopment agency additionally hopefully you can look out

0:12:54the window and see we installed the 12 wind sculptures along San Pablo Avenue and we've gotten a lot of positive feedback about that and only recently we had our celebration our walk run bike celebration reopening The Greenway after Bart left from their seismic retrofit

0:13:15in terms of community facilities and public facilities we realized the past few years this I I think last year we may not have even had a slide this year we have a little bit thanks to our Public Works maintenance staff on their own partly because of the drought we we

0:13:34had a little more flexibility this year not that we want the drought but it gave us some flexibility and they went and redid the irrigation system ourselves at Cerrito Vista Park and then we partnered with elsewhere to youth baseball and were able to rebuild three of the

0:13:48infields in in town uh Additionally the council recently approved a tree maintenance agreement where and I have a slide for this later on where we're much more efficient and effective in how we do our do our street trees moving on to ensuring The public's health and safety

0:14:07um part one crimes in 2014 are trending down and the chief could certainly talk more about that we received once again the fire department and we've been back here to award these grants received over one million dollars in Grants related to Public Safety including a brand new

0:14:26ladder truck that will be here soon the police department added a second canine and Handler to expand their capabilities and I already alluded to the five grants around we believe their Public Safety related grants to help move vehicles and people and bicycles around the city

0:14:44safely in terms of environmental sustainability our draft specific plan is out very recently which includes our form-based code and our complete streets and the draft environmental impact report is out much of what those documents do is trying to create an environment that is more

0:15:06environmentally sustainable we've installed we've installed um more water more efficient water heaters in this at the swim center and additionally as you all know we have solar panels now on five of our city of City facilities um that we have a slide to talk a little

0:15:23bit about our utility use but we're still evaluating the long-term impacts of doing all those things so I did also want to include our challenges this year and I already alluded to technological solutions the challenge that we have in in some of these things is

0:15:42as much as technology is plug and play and you have an app for that dealing with permitting systems and finance systems and Records Management systems are still a little more complicated than that and the challenge we have particularly with maintaining vacancies

0:15:59in different places it's spending the time and getting the level of knowledge necessary to maximize the use of technology and that's something that we continue to struggle with particularly with keeping our technology staff is the same as it's been for years in spite of

0:16:14the the absolute growth and demand for it um but we continue to research it and we anticipate a whole bunch of additional services that we do to be available online to our customers this year this coming fiscal year the other challenge related to the vacancies is stepping back and doing

0:16:35everything from professional development to contingency planning to succession planning to making sure that we are doing continuous quality improvement people are scrambling more working more and that's one of the big big effects of the vacancies we're carrying and while

0:16:55we're doing a better job year after year of year over year managing uh there are pension costs it's still a challenge and as as we we have talked about and as we've heard in fiscal year 16 pers is going to hit us with another significant rate increase are more other challenges that we have

0:17:16include recruiting and retaining staff our budgets are flat our compensation is largely flat or down and there's a perception out there that things are getting better we are seeing uh more hiring from other cities particularly in police and so a challenge that will have is making sure

0:17:36that we don't slip behind the market at a point at which we do have trouble retaining employees we've also mentioned and once again it continues this year our facilities are aging our parks are aging our Parks get played on um at just an amazing level uh we are

0:17:58looking to close two or three of the fields in this summer for maintenance and we're working with youth soccer and baseball to try to do some upgrades if if we can the other thing that I already alluded to was affordable housing without affordable housing funds

0:18:17and economic development Community Development has been a priority of the council and the community and our economic development manager program manager position recently became vacant and that is another position we are not going to fill so largely the work that

0:18:34person was doing will be consumed by the community development director and myself um it's just what we need to do to balance the budget and again we've talked about our senior center over the years and we want young what is it younger older people to come to the senior center and it's

0:18:54not a very attractive place to hang out and that's something we don't want to lose sight of we do need to keep the senior center on our on our radar screen related to facilities though um we do want to continue to make progress on a library and I've called it Library

0:19:13community center but we as you recall we did update our needs assessment we have talked about an initiative in 2016 before we can do that we need to figure out where it's going to go and that's something I think if we're going to really go forward on the library in a

0:19:29few years we obviously have to um nail down a site and we haven't done that yet the council has also talked about the possibility of an extension or Inc and or increase to what we refer to as measure r or say our short-term sales tax measure it staff's intention to

0:19:48bring that back to you for consideration in July we talked briefly in April about our desire to be more competitive in Contracting we already think we're competitive but we think there's there's room to do better and we've set up some internal working groups and are looking

0:20:06at us trying to renegotiate contracts and also use some of the bigger buying groups like U.S communities who go out and you essentially we do this but you pair up with Los Angeles or New York or someone else is doing big purchasing and maybe we could do a little bit better

0:20:25um we do have an election in November and that is a lot of work for your city clerk and uh in addition to what uh is already on her to-do list so that is an objective to make sure we have a real successful election and I alluded to the specific plan but we also have the urban Greening plan our

0:20:43active Transportation plan that we all want to get adopted and begin implementing this year this calendar year we keep stepping up our disaster preparedness training and want that to continue again we have talked for a number of years that it's time to do a new storm drain master plan and then we

0:21:05will consider what improvements need to be made whether that's bonds or pay as you go for our storm drain system we have included a little bit of money for some small some small improvements next year um grants as we've talked about a lot is continued to be a focus and we

0:21:23anticipate when you look back at some of our revenue and expense numbers uh you will see that we we will add grants to the numbers that we have we hope to leverage funding and win uh grants to actually begin a general Plan update in addition to everything else we're doing around the general plan and

0:21:41Recreation would like to spend time on a marketing plan to see if it can do more focused Outreach to try to increase its Revenue potential so in terms of those goals we asked all the Departments to take a look at their budgets and say how would you how does the pie look

0:21:59and what's what's one of the things that struck me was when you look at how the pie really works typically Public Safety is 66 67 percent of our budget but on here it's 47 and the same theme is true in some of the other areas I think what you're seeing is that the Departments

0:22:19are committed to providing exemplary service and providing making an attempt to do everything I can to make sure we're financially stable so when when asked to look at how you spend your resources how you spend your time there's a there's very much a crossover between service financial responsibility

0:22:38and providing direct service so I think that's what this pie really does show these are slides um similar to what we showed in April we did have four meetings in the neighborhoods we had about 37 residents come and it was really helpful to get uh feedback and have a dialogue we don't always get to

0:23:00do that additionally to the four meetings uh well let me back up a step on the next slide we essentially asked them to prioritize and how would they spend their money and Public Safety and Facilities essentially came out um the highest and that's not inconsistent with the statistically

0:23:23valid surveys we did or the online surveys that we did as part of the process on the next slide you can see that goal e and goal D are the ones that came out the highest unfortunately we don't always have the resources that match those desires particularly around gold d

0:23:42ude so getting into the organization um I originally said the colors don't mean anything then it occurred to me that the colors meant something when we did them last year and so I would I would highlight that the four areas that are orange are areas that we reorganized

0:24:02last year and overall we're really happy with how that turned out and so there are no organizational changes proposed going proposed this fiscal year next fiscal year so moving on to our finances so um I will probably be a little bit redundant so I apologize for that

0:24:24because I'm going to talk about some of the key assumptions and then go into more detail and then the numbers are in the middle so if if you have questions or need me to stop I'm going to go through the numbers relatively quickly because I have the assumptions bookending the numbers so I I don't want

0:24:39to do it I probably shouldn't do it three times but overall in terms of our key assumptions we have no reductions to current filled positions another way of saying that is we have no layoffs in this budget at this point part of the reason that we're able to do that is we

0:24:54had three people leave our employment in the last month and that help balance the budget we are carrying 15 vacancies uh five more than the current fiscal year we have assumed and this is on your agenda tonight that the non-public safety managers and unrepresented

0:25:16professional staff are going to contribute an additional four percent into their pensions last year we had about six hundred thousand dollar Grant from the municipal Services Corporation we don't have that this year I think the amount of money moving between from the public Municipal

0:25:33Service Corporation to the city is I think in the neighborhood of forty five thousand and then the municipal Service Corporation is largely out of funds depending on what happens with our current litigation with the state our overall salary savings are about 1.9

0:25:48million dollars in all funds associated with our vacancies and about 1.4 in the general fund in terms of police where we have the largest dollar savings the 539 thousand dollars shown here is less than last year because the police is going forward with some part-time hiring of community

0:26:07service officers but essentially are keeping three positions vacant this year based on not only their Staffing but but it's it's now a pure balancing measure and unless something changes we don't anticipate failing those positions this next fiscal year foreign for the last few years we have carried

0:26:31three vacant positions those are referred to as coverage positions we are fully staffed on all of our engines but rather than essentially bring in three coverage positions we use overtime instead because that saves us about 150 000 a year since we don't have to pay

0:26:47benefits on the overtime um and it seems to work well for both sides for the time being huh we have uh as I alluded to in my opening the general fund is not contributing to any Capital provenance in the city this in the next year and that's again an area that um we're having a bit of a problem

0:27:11in certain areas Economic Development and Human Resources we are have vacancies now where we didn't in the past and we're going to use some back-filled contract help but it's a much smaller amount than what the positions were so there's a very there's a significant uh overall Personnel

0:27:30savings and it is our expectation that we won't use any further reserves based on all of our based on all of our assumptions so having said those assumptions if you look at our city-wide revenues you can see that we have a significant Revenue decrease that is largely related to

0:27:53one-time revenues whether those were for a big piece of that was affordable housing that moved in and out capital projects that we show the money coming in as Revenue because they're funded from Grants overall for instance if you look at the tax line you can see between our 1314 budget our

0:28:121415 proposed It's relatively flat there is some growth uh next year in 1516 we actually think we have reasonably sound growth but the problem is on ultimately on the expense side and I'll talk about that in a minute um and I'll come back to this but as you can see the overall revenue between 14

0:28:3615 and 1516 is essentially flat in terms of city-wide expenditures it's the same pattern the expenses went up because we had a lot of outside funds and Grant funds Redevelopment funds and then it's now coming back as those finish that to some degree is cyclical

0:28:54we we have projects that are in the design phase and we expect the costs and revenues to go up above what's here as more grants come in and we we think that will happen but overall and I'll talk about this more in the general fund spending is flat it's up a bit in police it's up a bit in

0:29:13fire but largely it's flat when if you look at the next slide we've sliced it a different way so you can see by what we call by classification how we spend our money Personnel makes up about 77 percent and you can see that Personnel costs overall as the city is going down from

0:29:34what we budgeted last year and then going back up next year largely related to our pers pension increases and medical increases which we were actually able to hold almost flat this year hopefully we can do that again but we don't want to plan for it based on historical average all other expenses

0:29:51are generally down or flat and that's across all of our funds all of our special funds and the general fund if you look just at the general fund and that's what most people are most familiar with hopefully you're getting used to this slide and because this is where you get the I

0:30:09think the best overall snapshot starting with 2013-14 our current fiscal year we're anticipating we're doing a little bit better than when we last reported to you but still expect our we expect our reserves to go up a little bit from where we thought but still only

0:30:28just over five percent looking at our 1415 proposed budget as you can see there's uh roughly ninety thousand dollar balance that helps our budget go from 5.1 to 5.4 it's not we realized in April the council as well as myself said that our Target would be six percent

0:30:51um we did not get there yet based on some of our bargaining agreements and other Council direction we we could go back and explore and look at ways to do that if you look at 15 and 16 without additional revenues or more Cuts we anticipate um a bit of a flip to a red number and

0:31:12being almost a hundred thousand dollars upside down um which would bring our we'd go from being above five percent to back just below five percent so obviously things are tight in 15 16.

0:31:25so when you look in more detail at the general fund and you look at the revenue side you can see that revenues are largely flat and from what we budgeted this year to what we think is going to happen next year and then the following year we show what is a fair amount of Revenue growth

0:31:46we think that's across the board we think we'll see that in property tax sales tax virtually all of our taxes we think we'll see some sound growth and then assuming uh typical fee increases and other things will have some growth with our with our permits and our

0:32:06intergovernmental revenues and our charges for service so we think that revenues will go up not at the same rate as we saw during real economic growth sort of 2003 2004 2005 through up through 2008 but um but but sound however the problem is when you look at the next slide and you

0:32:28look at the expenditure side [Music] um we expect our expenses to grow up go up by even more if you look uh this again is by Department we are in most cases holding things flat but when you look at our bigger departments like police and fire we anticipate uh largely because of our

0:32:52pers our pension increases and medical increases that we will have a significant increase in expenses and so when you put that together we expect our expenses to be up a little bit more than our Revenue since 16.

0:33:06um but as you can see when you look at the budget that the council approved for this year we have essentially squeezed out over seven hundred thousand dollars of expenses um this year in order to uh try to finish this year strong and not go any worse into reserves and actually make

0:33:23that number a little bit better than we thought Scott can I ask a quick quick question about the prior slide when you were talking about the revenues Revenue growth in 1516. is that based on given that we think it's flat from today through the next fiscal year then

0:33:38there's a slight uptick in a year and a half is that based on sort of specific information or more just based on General trends that this year wasn't so great but we expect that next year we'll get better because more properties will be assessed is there something specific

0:33:54that we think might happen or is it just sort of a cyclical upturn um both um we have sales tax Consultants Property Tax Consultants that help us um property tax it's our expectation and their expectation that the county assessor is going to be moving properties back starting next

0:34:13fiscal year and it's a two-year process that's our understanding so you'll if you look at the property tax line you see a you do actually see a significant increase in 1415 and then another increase in 1516. sales tax has been trending up uh Home Depot aside um as just as an aside we've talked

0:34:36about Home Depot on and off just so you know so the council knows we've assumed no Home Depot Revenue in here so we've sort of normalized the budget uh going forward and that's consistent with currently what the Board of Equalization is doing and it's Our intention to come back to council later

0:34:54in the year and uh working with the city of Richmond and the Board of Equalization to get a long-term fix to the Home Depot situation which we think hopefully will not impact us going forward depending on how that works out um but yeah I I think it's a combination

0:35:13of both the trend lines are are strong um and uh we think that certain things are actually um changing so we're reasonably confident with the numbers and they're not they're not a stretch thank you um the next slide um just to show it more graphically if you go to the next one

0:35:37um you can see how we spend our money over the last few years we money has shifted a little bit from non-public safety to Public Safety each one percent you can assume is about three hundred thousand dollars change in 14 in in 1516 it's largely the same uh in terms of how we how we essentially

0:36:02split the general fund pie so at the risk of being redundant I will go through a little bit more detail and maybe this goes to council councilmember venison's question um we do think that property taxes are going to go up and that The Proposition 8 reductions are

0:36:22going to increase uh and we also have growth in our utility user tax and franchise fees based on information that we have and trends that we've seen licenses and permits as well as money and property are largely flat and sort of and consistent as smaller pieces

0:36:42uh of the general fund intergovernmental revenues we've already talked about the SRO program and our contract with Kensington uh largely runs with the general fund so we don't anticipate any wild swing there we assume in charges for services we had a four percent

0:37:01increase this year we had an eight percent uh increase in our Integrated Waste Management fund so um so that's a significant portion of our Revenue increase and just our other revenues that we collect are only slightly higher um and change based on one-time revenues

0:37:19which we've accounted for but on the expense side again I've alluded to some of these I've already talked about the vacancies the increase to the management and unrepresented people of the 539 thousand dollars are three police officers and one records person in the

0:37:38police department should things should we be looking better at mid-year either because we're just looking better or because we find a different we find it different Revenue Source or increase our revenues by going to the ballot I think we will reevaluate and hopefully if we if we did pass a

0:37:58measure that increased measure r that we would be wanting to authorize the police to go to full strength as a result of that I already mentioned the fire department they will stay with the coverage positions vacant and in 1516 we have budgeted about a million dollars and Personnel increases

0:38:20related to pension and medical costs and that's largely related to recent actions by Calpers and how they do their Actuarial um costing and uh there's really not much we can do about that other than what we're already doing and and trying to negotiate with our employees

0:38:38in terms of Professional Services they're flat largely except I already alluded to some back filling for vacant positions that we do need some technical help with I've also included fifty thousand dollars for public education should the council put a measure on the

0:38:55ballot that's in there and our Property Services declined by about two million dollars as we've completed completed projects I think other services supplies property and capital financing costs everything on this page is largely flat or down we have really tried to

0:39:15ratchet down costs and hold everything as constant as possible and um those changes are largely uh we don't believe they're largely material compared to some of the other changes but we we do obviously manage fuel costs and utility costs and as I mentioned we're dealing we are looking

0:39:35at our utility costs particularly with our solar panels and new heaters because the heaters for the swim center is obviously a huge user of energy to go into Staffing in a little more detail this is something that is how essentially how we manage how we manage to balance the budget now we have

0:39:56roughly 174 positions that have been approved or we're asking to be approved consistent with the past we are only planning to fill 159 of those so we're going to carry 15 vacancies this year since 2009 an additional five positions have been eliminated when you look back over those

0:40:19five-year period we've reduced our staff by 16 percent um we have assumed in the second year that everything that's happening in the uh 15 will remain constant and 16 barring any changes to revenues I've already mentioned a couple times Redevelopment it certainly does still

0:40:44linger that we've lost our Redevelopment agency the impact this year is about six hundred thousand dollars compared to last year overall losing the Redevelopment agency has cost the general fund about 1.2 million dollars a year since we've lost it the city prevailed in our first lawsuit as you

0:41:01know where the state tried to what we refer to as clawback or reach back and take 1.7 million dollars that number was settled at zero although ironically we believe the Department of Finance doesn't view that as a loss since it was settled we have a second lawsuit currently being

0:41:21heard in Sacramento related to our Co-op agreements and another attempt at climb back two million dollars it is not clear how the disposition of that case one way or another will affect the bottom line here since it may be handled outside of this process and as

0:41:38part of our enforceable obligation process in the future so we did not budget for it or include it I already mentioned the vacant Economic Development position our entrepreneur training which some of you are familiar we have not included and will be discontinued next year

0:41:55and the remaining uh Economic Development budget uh got even smaller so I we we certainly realize that's a priority but we just couldn't find a way to increase the funding or fund the position once again we kept this slide items that we certainly considered particularly our reserves and increasing

0:42:21our Reserves but we just weren't able to do it at this point but we we're here to have that conversation if that's something the council wants to us to consider further but we did not increase we did not include a larger increase in general fund Reserves there is no reinvestment fund for

0:42:43Capital facilities as I mentioned the general fund is not contributing we would really like to update our cost allocation model and fee study it's been almost 10 years now and it's something that really does help us spend more wisely and charge more wisely I think

0:43:00and our HR manager position is not getting filled it will get backfilled a little bit with uh legal and technical help but it will not be filled and there's no new financial support for play fields or open space or our facilities and playgrounds and are as I already mentioned our management

0:43:21employees and professional employees are are going to be paying more of their purrs so obviously there's no cost of living adjustment for them so to get into a little bit of what we're doing and what we've done um and you can just wanted to give you a snapshot there's no changes to City

0:43:39Management in terms of the city management budget Personnel is the same in terms of Professional Services I already mentioned that we've increased it related to a possible measure the city attorney's budget is flat um and the city council members share of their pension costs are treated the same

0:43:58way as management is going to be treated at the full employee share um and I'm not I didn't include more information on City management because I think we picked up some of that in the other slides in terms of Community Development once again we're staying uh similarly in terms of an organization

0:44:17and when you look at the next few slides planning permits building permits building valuation shows that we have had very consistent permits that people are taking out permits and pulling permits if you go back one slide we anticipate being roughly flat also permit size has been

0:44:42going up a little bit but overall our activity is very sound and very strong and and we feel good about that that the people are reinvesting in El Cerrito and that's shown by the planning permits the chart before you and building permits we anticipate that 13 14 number to be

0:44:59pretty similar same thing for this chart and the planning permits um when all is said and done um they're they're going to be roughly similar and the same thing on if you go two slides forward evaluations are are also coming in strong it seems like people are doing

0:45:15more complicated Renovations than maybe they were when the economy was really poor but overall we're really happy with in terms of Community Development I will say that when caveat to that is permits in some ways are a little bit down because we haven't had a dedicated code

0:45:32enforcement officer which hasn't been filled in a number of years and one of the roles that that position plays is going out and finding people doing work without permits and getting them in and getting permits so um staff estimates that could be as many as 50 to 100 permits or people are doing

0:45:50work out there without permits right now that we would like to catch I alluded to energy use this is a sort of a preliminary estimate of how we're doing and um you can see by the blue lot uh the blue graph where we're doing better and better in in terms of our use and again

0:46:08I don't have more information tonight but we are evaluating how the solar panels are doing and we think they're doing quite well and additionally the as I mentioned the heaters for the pools are much more energy efficient than what we installed when we built the pools

0:46:26so another another consistent theme we have is engaging the public and as you can see here um this community development is no different we've had over a thousand participants in many meetings and events and that's consistent with what we want to do is we want to really be engaging

0:46:45the community as much as as much as possible in terms of the Community Development budget one-time projects account for that large swing again that's where affordable housing happened and that's where the Eden and rcd projects come in and come out as well as capital projects

0:47:03occasionally come through there the budget reflects hiring of a building official as you realize we have not had one for quite some time based on the workload and the Really constant workload we think having tried to do a contract backfill we are just not getting the same value and the number of

0:47:22hours we can get for slightly more money if we go back to having a building official in-house and we also think that will have a really positive impact on on customer service also and that's something we've struggled with with only having a building official here a few

0:47:36days a week um but that is factored in here um we are currently at the end of this fiscal year taking a time out on the rental inspection program we want to step back and evaluate the contractor evaluate what we've done I'm sure we're going to come to council and talk about

0:47:52it we think overall the program has been successful there there have been customer service issues around the program we think we're currently doing the analysis that it may be more cost effective for us to do it in-house and and that's something we want to stop

0:48:08before we spend more money and figure out what is what is the best way to go forward so so that we did not include that program being budgeted for going forward but we anticipate doing it we just haven't figured out the best way to do it yet in terms of the finance department

0:48:26I will note on the chart that the account clerk technician position became vacant only a week ago and we are not planning to fill it that position focuses largely on accounts receivable that work we are going to be looking at ways to try to increase our productivity and some of the things

0:48:44Finance does and hopefully that work can get picked up by other Finance staff but that's something that only recently happened and something that we're going to be dealing with throughout the year and we have included some contract backfill help but the position is going

0:48:59to remain vacant as you can see and we talked about it in April that we thought we could reduce our contract cost we set a Target which is shown in finance of fifty thousand dollars in the general fund to save and uh we recorded it in the finance department um in terms of the the fire department

0:49:23the structure remains uh essentially the same with our three station system uh that utilizes essentially a b and c shift at the three at the three stations this structure has not changed for years and years and years um interestingly when you look at the workload statistics in the fire

0:49:43department and you look at the colored chart it is remarkable how consistent these lines are year over year over year over year the bulk of the fire department responses as you know are medical calls and then interestingly the lower calls are fire and hazardous

0:50:05conditions and we've talked about over the years what we call good intents that our fire department is a very full service department and they're they're working and they're here to help so they are they regularly go out on many calls whether that's pumping out basements or

0:50:22helping residents with whatever they need help for help with we send them out to help and we think they're happy to do that so but but we think that's when you go to exemplary service I don't think you'll see that in a lot of communities that level of good intent calls remember

0:50:38there's no additional cost of of doing some good services and Good Help in terms of uh workload highlights we again want to talk about engaging the community the fire department had a lot of touches this past year and um the only reason that some of the numbers are down was for one reason or

0:50:59another the schools made less requests of them this year so you'll see that those categories were down a bit but they still have nearly 2 000 public education contacts in terms of the budget we've already talked about the vacancies calls for service we think is going to

0:51:18be about the same fire prevention is normal essentially while we're tight and and equipment and building maintenance certainly in the public safety building and the fire department is largely fully fully funded the only hole we have and we're trying to work on some outside funding as a

0:51:43battalion chief vehicle has as well beyond its useful life uh so that's something we would we don't want to forget about but we hope to find some outside funding to maybe get that get that paid for moving on to the police department again the organization remains uh the

0:52:01same largely but I want to talk a little bit about the workload highlights and may ultimately have to defer to the chief on some of the specifics of this but overall incidents have been going down or really incidents that we refer to as calls for service that is both

0:52:16good and bad it's good that less people are calling the police for help but we also want to constantly remind people that we want them to call so we have been over the past few years really encouraging people that if you see anything suspicious or you have some

0:52:32concerns we'd much rather you call than not call so call higher calls for services and always a bad thing in terms of the police department's workload we we've talked a lot over the years about Priority One offenses and um as you can see in many areas the trends

0:52:53have been up up a little bit I'm happy to say and I think I have another bullet in this somewhere that so far in 2014 the trend has reversed property crimes are still a challenge which are you can uh which we'll get into in a little bit but the chief can talk more about it but

0:53:12in 2014 which isn't reported here yet we've we hopefully have crested and they're in spite of all the challenges PD has had this year the numbers seem to be uh going in the right direction for the most part in terms of some of the specific crime areas that people are most concerned about in in

0:53:34violent crime we have seen a decrease over the last five years the number is flattened in 13 and obviously this is something that the department focuses on and and obviously no one wants any of these things to happen so when we talk about Staffing and we talk about going

0:53:50forward obviously we we want to continually emphasize how important it is to get back to full Staffing property crimes is something the chief talked to you about it's been a problem throughout the East Bay and certainly the East Bay Hills and as you can see the trend over the last three years is

0:54:09an increase in essentially property crimes um so again that is that is a big focus and a big problem in El Cerrito we've talked about when you get into the police budget over the past number of years there are a number of things dispatch records management animal

0:54:28control that we contract out we're just as a city our size we just can't do those things cost effectively having said that those that provide us these Services have increased those costs significantly every year Well above inflation I think both Chiefs have done a great

0:54:46job pushing back where they can but ultimately yeah there's not much we can do about it at this point um I think we are always looking for other opportunities but for now what we're doing is the most cost effective way to do these services the salary savings I've talked to a

0:55:02number of times and we've talked about community service officers and hoping that they can provide the department with a bit more flexibility than they've had in the past moving on to Public Works the organization this is one where we did significant changes last year when we

0:55:20created the operations and environmental services division so far we're really happy with how this is going uh there are a couple vacancies in maintenance that worry us particularly when you look at our facilities and that they really could use a little more attention and a little more love

0:55:41but in public works just like everywhere else if you look at Engineering Services our permits are up um group Plan reviews are up and the requests to deal with neighborhood traffic as you all have probably seen and heard are also way up and so activity is generally strong and they

0:56:02are they are very busy foreign tree pruning which I we thought it was worth doing a call out here because when you can see when we had a staff person who who had the time to spend on something like this you can see the significant increase in the number of trees we're dealing with and trimming

0:56:25this year and how much the cost has gone down it really is it really is like striking almost that those curves are gone in real opposite directions the blue line going down the cost perch and the red line going up the number covered that's just our ability that when we

0:56:43have time to step back and do things smarter and more efficiently and and focus on it we can do things like that and this is the kind of thing we are going to do everything we can to make time to try to do more of uh throughout the city in terms of our Integrated Waste

0:56:58Management the while the bars where the overall height of the bars which are relatively flat um what we think is happening is people are just making less waste and that's what we want going back to when we added our food waste program there was a increase in composting when we changed our recycling

0:57:23program there was an increase in recycling we've already seen a big decrease in garbage so what we think is really happening is people are just generating less waste and that's overall they're using less and following better waste prevention practices but as you already know our recycling

0:57:42center is booming and whenever you go up there it's remarkable how many how many cars and how many customers are up there so I want to move on under Public Works to talk a little bit about our Capital Improvement program our CIP we've identified 32 projects some funded some not there

0:58:01some of them are listed there we have 17 active projects going and Consultants largely to manage them or many of them and we have six active construction contracts right now like we've said that's cyclical we expect um uh contracts that are in design to go forward and ultimately get back to a

0:58:29little bit more robust program even if you look at the next slide there's fiscal year 15 has 14 active projects that are in design or Construction and we anticipate spending close to four million dollars and three million dollars in these two years but again I want to reiterate once again that's

0:58:45non-general fund the major projects largely funded through grants as you can see uh we've tried to align them with the Strategic plan once again and it's spread out amongst the different goals pretty evenly around Public Safety and place making and uh the things that we're really trying to

0:59:10do within the specific plan having said all that we've talked about grants a lot we are we are taking a harder look at Grants and we are trying to learn how to say no the concern we have is we don't want to take on grants that are going to just become impossible or to manage

0:59:25um so it really needs to be consistent with our mission if we're going to go forward and put in an application in terms of expenses there are two maintenance workers and an associate engineer in the vacancy count they're uh some increases in Property Services around building because there's

0:59:45maintenance in some of our facilities that we just we just have to do we rent those facilities and it's becoming more as as much rental income as we're able to generate as used as those facilities are if if some of them deteriorate any further they might not be

1:00:02um able to be rented certainly not at the level they are now we have reduced landscape maintenance services to keep our special funds in Balance but we also said we're doing better on uh tree trimming a non-personnel expenses are flat and we have eliminated when recycling driver

1:00:22recycling worker position in Recreation there's one vacancy being carried and some of these charts I'd really like you to focus on the volume and not the history as you may recall a few years ago we switched software programs that account for how we do things differently

1:00:42so in some cases it looks like we're doing less that's actually not the case but having said that our our enrollments everywhere are up our adult programs are actually up on the next slide are summer camps are thriving and starting now and as you can see there's quite a

1:01:06diversity of of camps they're still growing and again the actual this is run right out of our systems but the actual um statistics are all in growth mode and certainly the rec director could talk more about that The Swim Center is very consistent there are actually more swim lessons

1:01:28each year that the pool has been open it's been incredibly strong year after year after year and that's why it's so important whether it's the heaters or the facility that we keep reinvesting In The Swim Center to keep up keep up its usage and keep it as close to New as we

1:01:45can I had already mentioned the senior center but one thing we are really happy about is if you look at the programs and the classes and what we're trying to do usage is up and I think that's more about the program offerings than it is about the building but we really are

1:02:02trying to get whatever we can and and provide whatever we can to um our senior our senior center and our senior services Personnel largely remains uh flat with the exception of 16 just like everywhere else where Personnel expenses are going up all other expenses are flat again

1:02:25with some small CPI adjustments in terms of revenues the department still anticipates revenues to go up each year again I think it is remarkable that um for a city our size that the rec department will generate three and a half to four million dollars in Revenue

1:02:48so what that goes to when you look on the next slide and you've seen this slide before but we think it's very important particularly in a tough economic climate that the general funds uh contribution to the rec department has gone down by almost a million dollars

1:03:04and that's continuing so then less than two percent of the general fund is dedicated to the rec department so when we talk about Cuts or not Cuts or where we should cut there's very little impact on the bottom line if you cut Recreation programs because of the revenue loss and again it really

1:03:21goes to the entrepreneurial nature of the staff the creativity of the offerings our rec department really is the tops really the top-notch that you can find so having said all of that um there are some open items or areas for possible direction or discussion tonight or when we return

1:03:42we have ongoing labor negotiations with all of our employee groups whether they're in contract or not we have included certain assumptions in this budget that may or may not be changed depending on how those negotiations come out that's part of our challenge in trying

1:04:00to project long term and we haven't included in the proposed budget a 10-year plan because it's so volatile depending on the Personnel costs since three quarter more than three quarters of our costs are Personnel related I think the biggest issue for consideration or discussion is that the

1:04:17general fund reserves I think we all would agree that we would like the number to be a bit higher um we didn't get I think the goal in starting the budget was six percent and um it is possible that depending on how negotiations come out that we could get a little bit closer to that six percent

1:04:33or conversely a little bit further away um the real question for the council is if you wanted to go further we need direction on the areas that you would want us to focus in um it really comes down at this point to where we want to cut services and and probably ultimately people

1:04:54um and we would need to have a conversation and get direction on how to how to focus our efforts on um because it really is about expense cutting there's no more Revenue there to be had so that is that's we felt we needed more policy direction if you wanted to try to

1:05:10go further but we could talk a little bit more about that we alluded to I alluded to measure R we have not budgeted any revenues for any change to measure R other than what we already get if we were to increase measure r as we've talked about that is another three

1:05:29to four hundred thousand dollars Revenue in the next fiscal year which could go to increasing that 5.4 number probably to around seven percent um if we did not spend that money on anything else um and then if measure R was increased I think we could certainly plan on

1:05:50increasing the reserves by another one percent per year as we discussed based on that new Revenue um with that addition with the remaining Revenue going towards backfilling some of the holes that we've talked a lot about tonight for the council to consider do you

1:06:08believe ultimately that our assumptions are reasonable is it consistent with the City council's Mission Vision and goals we we have tried to go to Great lands particularly in the book um to be consistent with that and is it consistent with overall Council policy even beyond the plan

1:06:25so beginning tonight we're happy to review and provide answers or discussion about comments and questions whether that's me or any other senior staff either sitting up and around the dice and then ultimately we have to consider the overall budget for adoption that can

1:06:44be as early as our next meeting and then if necessary the 24th and the 30th we always want to thank a few folks obviously the residents in business in El Cerrito no matter how we have measured it they continually have supported us and trust us and we never take that for granted and we

1:07:08every year try to do more and more in terms of being responsive uh to their expectations we thank the city council you're a remarkably supportive Council of the staff it's not always like that and we appreciate it and we appreciate the leadership you show the financial

1:07:27Advisory Board it's it's somewhat crazy for them because this was a very crazy budget year for us so we appreciate any help they give any comments we get they have been looking at the numbers and and got the budget book the same time the council did all of our city staff for

1:07:44their hard work and their commitment the department heads who are here you have a great group and great leaders and they're really committed to what they do for you all and then specifically over the last few days um the finance staff Lisa and Lori and Jeff Sakari who was our HR manager and Karen

1:08:06who's our assistant city manager we really had to uh work particularly hard the last week to get the to meet these deadlines and meet the schedule so with that um we're happy to open it up to we show our Awards but we're happy to open it up all of us to questions

1:08:23comments or clarifications thank you yeah I'll go ahead and start um I have a one question about property tax and property um the first question I had I guess this is um a property tax um assumptions are based on gross net or I'm not not gross assessed values in

1:08:44this budget right it's it's actually I'm maybe at least I can talk more about it but it's there is a whole complicated formula that goes goes into it right yeah so you made a comment about the um Prop 8 having 40 percent um reassess value we wouldn't see that until 2015-16

1:09:09or or maybe even later so we'll see we're estimating we'll see partial next year about 37 maybe 40 percent as Scott talked about and then the remainder in 16. so that well 40 next year yeah and then full recapture by 16. okay I would ask if you could introduce yourself and all our folks up

1:09:29here sorry Lisa Malik said a finance director all right um thank you one thank you too for the presentation it was um another sobering budget experience um I had a question about our sales tax and the Home Depot so I I understand what the um Boe ruled on but we had a prior agreement with the

1:09:56city of Richmond which isn't in conflict with what the Boe had ruled on am I right in saying that the or can I or maybe the City attorney could take we could flip a coin but the Board of Equalization essentially doesn't recognize our agreement with Richmond right so one of the strategy

1:10:15that we and Richmond and the Board of Equalization have recently agreed to is doing a new agreement which we would ultimately bring to the two City councils and the Boe to and then the Boe will recognize that that agreement which would sort of re-memorialize the deal

1:10:31that we've had in place with Richmond for almost 20 years now I think and and the amount of money that we are in arrears with that the city of Richmond is probably five to seven hundred fifty thousand dollars something like that yeah at last reconciliation it was around seven

1:10:52hundred thousand dollars but that doesn't take into consideration any payments this year we've had um last year some at the end of the year we we talked about an adjustment that Boe made um that was pretty significant so we have to do a new reconciliation at the

1:11:07end of this year um the the other piece is that in the middle of it was April Home Depot changed their reporting structure once again and so all the revenue is actually now going to Richmond so some payments are actually being we're not receiving any more revenue for the rest of the

1:11:24fiscal year that's going against our liability back liability and so to be conservative we have budgeted no Home Depot revenue on the assumption that Richmond will continue to collect our share until they're whole and does that also hold two for our measures for a r

1:11:40yes as as far as we know we're getting it or they're keeping it they're keeping it 100 they're keeping a hundred percent okay um and I had a question about this storm drain master plan okay is there a potential funding sources for that I mean measure we have a storm drain assessment and will we

1:12:08um are we going to move forward with this is this something can you just make some comments about the plan good evening is done good evening Council my name is Yvette Ortiz and our Public Works director and city engineer I um So the plan with the storm drain master plan is

1:12:26to begin to up the process of issuing the request for proposals this coming fiscal year and and then actually implementing the master plan study at the fiscal year 16. so this next fiscal year we're just going to do the most urgent priority projects to address localized flooding

1:12:49it's all using measure J Revenue stormy Revenue and um there was a comment made that our litigation against uh dof is now being heard do we do we know any timeline about that um the court asked for supplemental briefing on some specific questions that were raised during oral argument

1:13:17that those briefs are due I believe around the end of June at that point the court has said there will be no further oral argument so the case will essentially have been what uh what the courts refer to as submitted upon the briefs at that point um there's there are some some

1:13:39they're not exactly deadlines there are some guidelines about when courts are supposed to issue decisions but there's no hard deadline so we're basically at that point we'll basically be in we'll basically waiting for the court to issue a decision I guess I would add could I defer to

1:13:54this attorney that we probably expect if we were to Prevail the state would uh because of the potential ripple effect it's likely that Department of Finance would appeal okay I I agree with that I mean unless they reached out to us to make some sort of settlement that was actually

1:14:12agreeable to us I would anticipate an appeal um and I just uh wanted to ask the police chief it's not really a budget question so much perhaps as just to address on the crime on page 57 that was in the slides um I guess my question is why am I so we all know that I think we've made

1:14:39assumptions or you hear people say that we have increased property crime whether it be cars burglaries homes whatever um it's it's a reflection of a poor economy I don't know that that's really true or not but I guess my question is um is there other things we can do with our

1:14:58crime prevention committee or a stronger neighborhood group or something else because I'm wondering if when crime occurs if in retrospect people say when a report's made oh you know I did see that car in front of that house or I did see something suspicious and I really

1:15:15didn't call and and you know Mr Hannon commented about how we really do want more service calls and and if that reality if if that's a reality or if that's just sort of fiction I'm my part good evening I'm Sylvia Moyer your police chief and I can speak directly to

1:15:33that in saying that yes I would I agree that any kind of relationship between the police department and the community where trust is built and officers and the community partner together to decrease crime is always to our benefit speaking directly to the decrease in

1:15:54violent crime that we reported in 2013 but an uptick or an increase in property crime we started in the police department examining flexible deployment and data-driven deployment to have uniformed officers in our neighborhoods at very specific times I think that not speaking

1:16:15to cause but to correlation we can say that there is a correlation between the efforts that we've taken in terms of flexible deployment in reaching out with the community partnering with the community for crime prevention has resulted in a decrease in crime in the first five

1:16:32months of this year I we always encourage the community to call we did some very unique things last year in terms of technology and reach out and we also had a big Safety Fair which we spoke to that bridge the gap between the communities and providers of of safety things like alarms and and other

1:16:57Outreach efforts so specifically I think you can see that we always encourage people to call and we have seen a steady increase in calls or service in suspicious persons thank you um and um I think it's really nice to see the creativity that comes from our staff

1:17:19um and and the small but significant amounts of money we can save by considering in-house rental inspections and what happened with the tree trimming I mean that's that's a really nice example to see and I guess my only other comment is um yeah we need to go forward

1:17:38with measure our increase that's all I have for now thank you thank you just a couple questions for me um when we did our good to Great series there was discussion about a stop doing list and at that time we all said what's on the stop doing list and I believe Karen you said you'll know during the

1:17:56budget and I don't know if we'll know but I wanted to give you all an opportunity to mention whether or not there are items that made it onto the stop doing list that we'll see in the next fiscal year or I know there was also a start doing list that was discussed as well and I just in the vein

1:18:11of creativity among staff I thought that was something really interesting to actually think about what we're doing and to try to prioritize maybe in this constrained environment where you're all doing multiple jobs in multiple you know filling in for one another are there

1:18:24things that came up that that are going to be put aside a bit or are going to percolate to the top well I would there are probably stop doing things built in here um I don't know that I can pick them out because some of them are internal but I I will say that um as a

1:18:41follow-up to that we have a stop doing task force essentially led by the uh a vet and there's a sort of a working group that we have met two or three times that are sort of flushing out those things um I don't know if um either a vet or anyone else wants to add

1:18:59and not to put you on the spot but it is something we are looking at and but it's it's in many ways internally focused of trying to stop doing certain things um it's dealing with things that we can do better everything from kind of the phone tree to some of the customer

1:19:14interactions to some of the online things it's um how our finance and HR interact with the Departments trying to free them up a little more and make their lives easier so we're I think it's fair to say we're focusing internally first but um other folks may have other other

1:19:32opinions I think that one of the strongest things that particularly when the Departments we did a we did our own analysis internally on what we do in our programs and services which you'll see throughout the department narratives each of their sections that we made sure

1:19:50to tailor everything we did to the Strategic plan and I think Scott actually addressed this in his letter that we're going to be continually focused and even more focused on those projects going forward that they're only adhering to the Strategic plan so those key objectives that Scott had talked

1:20:06about we're kind of going to stop doing everything else at the expense of those things because we want to make sure that a we're focusing on the Strategic plan goals and I think the Department's did a fabulous job in in pinpointing exactly how they do those things but B new

1:20:22things that come up as as wonderful as we would like to try to do everything we don't have the resources to do it and we want to make sure we're staying true to the strategies we've already implemented and just a follow-up on that I think that looking at the budget it shows that

1:20:40our strategic plan was both um kind of a synthesis of what we've been doing for a number of years as well as kind of a way of codifying where we're going in the future so this budget doesn't look that different that means our strategic plan was pretty much in sync with where the city already was

1:20:59absolutely well said thank you another question on the key objectives over the next two years I just wanted to hear more about the recreation marketing plan um I I hadn't heard too much about that in the past I wanted to give Chris Mr Jones a moment to just describe it for

1:21:17us and what may be the aims of that effort thank you Chris Jones our Recreation director um essentially we've been reviewing you know we started Twitter we're getting ready to start Facebook we're reviewing social media um we want we want to be careful about not jumping into many things see how

1:21:38effective they will be we're continuing to try to expand our e-newsletter but we also want to do some targeted community outreach more what would you like to see who would you like what type of programs would you like us to try to find instructors for so try to use our technology to engage a

1:21:58community a little more to kind of guide our decisions yeah I was going to ask right now how do you get that information well we do um require the number of parent groups at the different schools um they kind of um poll amongst themselves like what they'd like to see and if we're able to

1:22:16find it we'll try it um but we just want to kind of expand that to the Greater Community right for those who don't have parents who are on a phone tree list yes exactly like yeah non non-children um okay great and the other item I wanted to speak about is is measure R

1:22:34which I'm sure we're going to talk about a lot I wanted to just hear functionally how it's going to work so and particularly how the council will have input so we'll presumably pass a budget in June we'll discuss in July what type of measure may or may not be on the

1:22:50ballot and if it if it is or if an increase did pass in November then what's the next step in terms of appropriating that funding like how is there a obviously there'd be a budget amendment but what I wanted to hear more about what would happen right um assuming the council took an action

1:23:09to place a measure on the ballot and that measure and it included an increase one other thing that we need that I I am working on with um assembly women's Skinner's office is we need special legislation uh from both we need the governor to ultimately sign special legislation because we would be

1:23:25over the cap I will say that um what's happened is words got out that we were going for it and so Contra Costa County has jumped on our bill and then it was about to be introduced in committee this week and Marin in Sonoma County want to jump on our bill so I'd like to say once again we were

1:23:46out in front uh being leaders so there's some haggling going on in Sacramento the the bill is supposed to be heard a week from Wednesday so I'll be up in Sacramento for that so we we hope and at least based on um our the assembly staff we think that the measure will be will do fine the

1:24:08challenge that we will have you know it is it's it's just based on the cycle of legislation up there and how slow it moves and it's not likely that the governor will sign it in time it won't it it's virtually certain it will not be signed by the governor at the time you put the measure on the

1:24:25ballot so that's where I would defer to our City attorney who has already been working as has the assembly staff with the Board of Equalization to make sure that the ballot language is crafted in a way that the measure is effective upon a vote of the people and a signature of

1:24:42the governor essentially so that's just some background so you you know about process um we have intentionally not included any assumptions towards measure R in this budget if the the way the measure would work if if it was increased in November under the way the Board of Equalization

1:25:02administers sales tax and help me if I miss you begin collecting the First full quarter after the First full quarter after the measure was passed so I right close it's not quite right it's it's very close it's it's the first quarter that's more than 110 days after

1:25:23the measure is approved which for a November election essentially means April we would start collecting in April um uh based on our current revenues it's probably between three and four hundred thousand dollars and that money um I we would we would either finish with a bigger fund balance

1:25:45at the end of the year or or ask you to appropriate additional Revenue we probably because we wouldn't start receiving that money until later in the fiscal year it would probably just accrue to our our fund balance unless you think otherwise you know we would have we would end the year three to four

1:26:00hundred thousand better than we thought and then we would come back um maybe to step back a second and talk about the two-year budget for a second since I didn't really talk about the mechanics of that when we come back uh for you to consider adoption you would

1:26:16be adopting only the fiscal year 15 budget at this time we would do budgets similar to the way we've done it in the past we wouldn't do a new budget book but you would do we'd have periodic check-ins a mid-year check-in and then at this time next year we would be

1:26:31coming forward with a an appropriation recommendation for the second year that would include a much more refined estimate which would include an additional million and a half dollars in revenue and then I think we'd have it to have a discussion on presumably that

1:26:49would change some of the service assumptions and essentially how would you want to where would that money go would I guess would be the question for you exactly a better question than the questions were usually asked um one more question so we've been you talked about how the 10-year projection

1:27:07is not included now because of the volatility of all the assumptions um and you and I spoke a little bit offline about where the reserve has been in the past and Scott shared maybe 20 years of information with me that shows the reserve has gone up and down but generally it's been well above 10 if not

1:27:24well above 15 percent say for the last um one or two fiscal years I guess I just wanted to hear or just reiterate the what I have in my mind which is if we don't pass an increase in measure R and we want to increase our Reserve backed up to what we consider to be a

1:27:43sustainable 10 to 15 percent then what is needed are cuts that would either mean people leaving of their own choice or layoffs yes I mean layoffs I think would certainly be part of it I mean it really depends if your goal is to go from five and a half to ten that is roughly a

1:28:06million four in additional revenues or expenses we're we're saying there's no additional Revenue short of a change to measure are so you would really we would really have to identify if you wanted to get to 10 what services would be cut and then whether those would be full-time or

1:28:23part-time people I mean like we've said the fixed expenses we have are largely fixed the variable expenses are the people some are more variable than others and it would really become down to your back to your strategic plan and and then within that strategic plan which of those goals are

1:28:46more important than other goals and you're really going to have to make a decision about is it police is it public safety is it environmental sustainability where do we go leaner is it Recreation I mean we could isolate within Recreation where the shortfalls are you could

1:29:07you're going to do targeted cuts that may not have the same Revenue hit um but there are there are certainly issues about usership in Recreation than if you were to close the pool if you were to close the senior center you know you could lose people that may or may not come back

1:29:24um but that's true for anything whether that's you know any of our programs or facilities we we've talked about um well that crime Trends in some areas may be doing better there's still a significant amount I think well more than any of us want to go beyond three

1:29:42vacancies in police we think has significant operational impacts but police isn't still has some still hasn't gotten up to only three vacancies so you could cut police further and then there then you really do start getting into what are the areas you want to reduce staff that's it's just

1:30:02unfortunately that um that cut and try and that's largely why we didn't um take that initiative without getting more more Direction on where that would occur and at what amount the council can stomach this so to speak okay those are all my questions for now I'll save a bit of time maybe to have

1:30:21comments a little bit later sure okay we can go um I'll start with the fire chief foreign I'm Lance Maples your fire chief be happy to answer any questions you have the our service agreement with the town of or the unincorporated community of Kensington how often does that

1:30:48renegotiated and when was the last time that was increased it hasn't been increased since its Inception in 1995 the formula we use is approximately a third of the fire budget and it stayed at that amount based on the scale of one of the three stations in the system the current contract with

1:31:05Kensington expires in 2020. so so it the the amount of Revenue we get from them has gone up because the budget potentially has gone up is that correct yeah yes it's 30 percent of the fire's general fund budget and it moves up in that relation okay um we're getting a new truck this year

1:31:23based on a grant that we got does that replace an existing truck yeah that replaces the 1991 100 foot area that we have here at station 71.

1:31:33and do we have to pay to get rid of that or will we make will there be some revenue from selling that uh there'll probably be very little Revenue because at this point in time the federal government's telling us it has to be surplused and be put out of service so

1:31:45in essence salvaged um okay for the rec director um one of my questions was already answered with regards to the marketing plan um is does this budget include any like changes in the pool hours are we closing the pool for two weeks like we did in past yeah we do anticipate that we will close

1:32:15for a maintenance period for two to three weeks um and we have tried to trim our schedule kind of around the edges mostly in the off season um and back filling some of our full-time staff might be the um person who gets the brakes like in the winter when we only have lap swim going

1:32:35on um one of the outstanding potential obligations we have is to this Gilman Sports Fields is do you know if that Gillman Sports field payment is included in the budget at this time not in the recreation Department's budget I would have to double I would have to double check I actually

1:33:03think it is because it was based on the current year but I would I would want to double check that okay um go ahead and pass it on Galaxy uh equal opportunity exactly actually the next question would be up here on the front you've already got a microphone um I noticed in the uh that there was a

1:33:26senior Finance Analyst at 80 percent and and they're I think there I didn't do an exhaustive search but I think I could have seen at least a couple other part-time or less than full-time positions I'm assuming that those are full or they are less than full-time or

1:33:4280 in this case because those people who choose to work that level it's or we didn't change their work schedule for this budget no it's the existing um that's actually the only position within finance that is and then we have one position um as Scott mentioned that just recently

1:34:00became vacant that won't be filled this year okay um all right and and similarly are there any is City Hall going to be closed are there any furloughs or any times when we're anticipating a change in our service we've I know in the past we've shut down between Christmas and New

1:34:20Year's I'm just curious if that's something that was worked into the current budget we have at this point um like I mentioned there are still negotiations underway and if we were to do uh furloughs it would be part of that but right now we have not budgeted any

1:34:36version any furloughs uh nor have we assumed any change in schedule than what we've been doing which is typically we I think what we're anticipating right now if I remember the schedule correctly is closing the day before Christmas through New Year's so to be it'll be a little

1:34:52shorter than what it's been in the past just because that's how the holidays line up and then back to the building department yes Vince yes introduce yourself my name is Melanie mintzen I'm the city's interim community development director um we're keeping uh at least one code

1:35:15enforcement position uh vacant it that's I don't know if it's considered a revenue generating position but I'm just curious is would anybody look into whether the code enforcement position generates more Revenue than it costs to operate that position I think that's

1:35:31going to be part of our evaluation of the rental inspection program so we're currently staffed at two full-time or the proposed budget is two full-time and one half-time position and they are all building inspectors who end one in particular is able to do our code

1:35:46enforcement activities um and so that the halftime position is is a tad problematic in terms of keeping it filled then it's there to both be able to help when building inspections increase during the construction season so being able to dedicate a certain amount of hours of

1:36:04the pers of the two people who are the two full-time permanent then positions is a little bit variable so it's a very response-based program at this point a complaint based in looking at the rental inspection program and looking at the revenues associated with the rental

1:36:19inspection program as well as the life safety improvements that are made through that program could potentially be a source to be able to make that a full-time position with a revenue Source additionally a city manager mentioned that we do see an increase of about 90

1:36:36today we evaluated and there's about 95 building permits that were issued last year when we had a code enforcement officer that resulted from a Code Enforcement cases so they stopped they started with code enforcement they were opened and put into the system as code

1:36:51enforcement and when those come in for a building permit they stop in code enforcement and become a building permit so we think there's obviously revenues associated with that um fines are a small a small part of it really is it's much more about getting the work done right and being able to be

1:37:07responsive and pro both proactive and responsive and I concur with that policy it's more about getting people to comply with our uh building permits and not necessarily just uh to be punitive of them um back to the finance director sorry um on the uh on slide 29 there's three

1:37:27different terms used there's adopted uh 2012 2013 amended 20 20 sorry not I got the wrong slide in front of me there's adopted amended and projected all for the same fiscal year and and I'm just curious projected does not show up in the budget book except under one one table in the budget book

1:37:52and so I'm just curious what is projected and most notably on this on slide 29 when you get there the property taxes are significantly lower than amended and I'm just trying to figure out what in that part of that is because it's general fund because when I go back to the projected

1:38:13uh I think it's what see that no projected's not on the city-wide Revenue fund so I I'm just trying to figure out what's the projected and what happened there so typically um as you know the amended reflects any of the changes that Council has adopted from the time that we originally adopted

1:38:36the budget and then the projection is a reflection of any changes that we know about and are um anticipating for the year end one of the issues is that we don't necessarily revise our Revenue projections so you'll still see the amended and it was the case with property and sales tax I think in first

1:38:55quarter we came back and said we already know there's some changes here so that's going to be reflecting our projected but it doesn't show up on the amended side simply because we don't change the amended budget for revenues since Council only adopts really Appropriations for expenses so that's

1:39:12the real change between the numbers you see in the amended and the projected you know in some cases we've used the projected on the general fund side because that's what you're seeing more frequently we're coming to council with the updates um other than that the amended budget

1:39:27should typically be a good reflection of where we're anticipating ending the fiscal year I don't know better reflects the fund balance that's how we try to tie the projected fund balance in better of where we're starting it's a more accurate reflection agreed agreed um but

1:39:45the only in the budget book The only table I found with uh oh there's a projected one here as well okay um so then on that particular line item uh property taxes where the amended was 6.4 million actually never might have been a typo let's say the amended was 6.3 million which is what it is in the

1:40:05book The Project is only 6 million I'm just curious what what is the difference in those two that was um basically at the beginning of the fiscal year we had said that when we estimated the projected property taxes back at the budget adoption that estimate wasn't

1:40:21accurate and so we knew very early on in the fiscal year that the property taxes were going to come in under what we assumed we had some increases in our sales tax which were over and above what we had originally adopted those were somewhat balancing each other out but

1:40:36again it's not reflected in the amended because we don't change yeah no I understand you don't change the amended um but then we're going from essentially a six million projected property tax to a 6.6 million next year at least in the general fund Revenue when I look at the

1:40:52tax revenue on oh I had it a minute ago um 29. it's it's roughly flat six the property taxes if when I look at table 2.8 um well I mean it's the amended is 6.3 and the proposed is 6.4 so the on that table the tax increase looks like it's you know one percent or

1:41:18something like that but when I look at the slide and the projected is at 6 million and the projected is 6.6 it it's pretty substantial difference so I'm just trying to understand those differences I'm sorry I'm not following were you referring to the table in the budget

1:41:34book yeah well on slide 29 which we're still not there yet yep um I think it's trying to reflect what's in table two eight and it doesn't um so I'm just trying to figure out there we go thank you um on this Slide the first line under 2014 2015 the proposed is almost 6.6 million

1:42:02in table 2-8 the proposed is 6.4 million it's a pretty substantial difference 200 000 difference but when I look at the columns 2013 projected in 2014 proposed that's almost a 600 that's a 10 increase I'm just trying to one of our tasks tonight is to look at the assumptions and I'm very concerned

1:42:22when I see an assumption that assumes that property tax is going to increase 10 percent so the property tax in um between the change between 14 and 15 also includes recapturing of The Prop 8 in addition to any increases that are anticipated so that's the big change

1:42:40between where we saw no recapturing of the prop eights we started from um a projection that was lower than anticipated and now for 15 you're seeing those two changes so the comparison it's really sort of a change in the assessed value completely so it's hard to make

1:42:59that comparison you'll see less of that change between 15 and 16 and that's truly just the recapture the full recapture of The Prop 8 and then anticipated two percent CPI so just the cap right so in order to get those Prop 8 recaptures those would have to be on

1:43:16our current Bill those will be reflected on the August 1st for the next fiscal for the next year essentially every April exactly exactly so and so all of that will come the other thing is timing of course all of that will come to us in that in that fiscal year right right and

1:43:36that's not the full as I mentioned before full recapture we anticipate that'll be over two years is what we're a follow-up question so uh obviously to implement that restoration of some of those reductions we need a sense of urgency from the assessor if we've been in conversations with the

1:43:56assessor is this uh priority or when they get around to it kind of thing well I think that's what our our sales tax consultant regularly works with the assessor and that's who we're working through I mean the assessor historically has not appreciated all the cities

1:44:11calling and sort of badger asking him to do his job yeah um but so we understand through his office and through our Consultants that that's that's the plan so and I will say our Consultants are pretty conservative when it comes to giving us any predictions as much as I push them to

1:44:28give us optimistic news they they're very hesitant to do that so the fact that they're actually saying that about the property it's just pretty positive and and just another follow-up The Prop 8 is one way to increase sales uh property tax the other way is when

1:44:47properties sell they're selling at a higher price than they were purchased for some 10 20 30 years ago so there's a significant increase at those times also correct I will add council member Lyman there is a inconsistency I in 2.8 and in the chart you're looking on

1:45:08the chart on the screen yeah it agrees in total but there there must be something picked up yeah it might be skewing that it's I don't think it's as big as it as you as you're reporting so we need to go back and figure out um again the total is the same but I'm

1:45:23wondering if two lines got crossed I I concur with you because if you look at the adopted and the amended in this in this versus the adopted amended in the tables the amended actually has different numbers um so that there is the slide I'm cutting a lot of latitude on the slide

1:45:40but I but the the change is what I wanted to get out and it is you know the property prop 18 Prop 8 changes that the recapture that that is the most important message here and I can provide an updated chart next week when we come back with those numbers yeah we've got

1:46:00the budget books so it at this point most of those numbers except the projected 2013 14 numbers are in the budget book that's otherwise I would have relied on the budget book um on page 38 table 2-5 which is the transfers it shows the 2.8 million that that gets transferred

1:46:23back and forth it shows up on multiple tables in the in the presentation um I just wanted to make sure none of these are because one of the things that we asked was to make sure that we didn't rely on one-time funds all of these funds are recurring funds and that that

1:46:42are recurring revenues correct correct the only one time um it's not one-time Revenue but the only one-time things you're actually seeing are some loans um to special funds in the next fiscal year which is part of the overall budget balancing but I did see those we're

1:47:03advancing we're advancing you know 50 000 here 60 000 there but paying them back correct correct and they're not based on one-time revenues they're ongoing revenues but they are a one-time measure right um and I will conclude my oh I do have one more for the city manager

1:47:27um 28 000 almost 29 000 for boards and commissions um how much of that actually gets used on any given year um and I mean is this something that is legitimate I mean I see 3 500 here 3 500 there they look like more or less rubber stamp numbers that we've been doing over

1:47:50and over again I'm just curious sure if that's something well I think we also added a little bit this year to make it a little more consistent between them all but if you um I think we have 11. so you're talking about about 3 000 and it's different I'm in the Planning Commission and has more

1:48:09training um Environmental Quality has more events human relations again it's largely the Martin Luther King Parade so I think I mean I think they're pretty real but yes and in fact we have cut those in recent years um I know that several arts and culture commission I think Environmental Quality

1:48:31and HRC have reduced theirs in recent years we've been trying to be a little bit more again data driven as far as getting real costs for those events that they sponsor and reflect those and it should be noted that all of those budgets that boards and commission the

1:48:50boards and commissions budgets are reflected in the staff liaison budget that does it so for example arts and culture commission staffed by someone in the city management Suzanne in City management and so that budget is reflected in the city manager's division budget

1:49:06all right thank you Mark yeah thank you a lot of my questions have already been asked um they were mostly around the property tax which councilman Lyman dealt with quite well on the tax measure measure are when council member benicini and I were at the mayor's conference this came up in

1:49:30conjunction with doctors hospital and since then supervisor Joy has introduced to be discussed with the Board of Supervisors county-wide tax a good portion of which he would like to see go for doctor's hospital and at that meeting it was said that El Cerrito and was it Orinda one

1:49:50other City are maxed out maybe Antioch yeah and then there were a couple other cities presence who said they have tax measures of their own coming in November so it's kind of a tricky situation because the county-wide tax absent this legislation could be held up but

1:50:09fortunately not just by us but by another city unless they Exempted us somehow from that text which you're under the county is my understanding is the county is at the cap whether or not that's not what we heard but aren't they that well my understanding of things is

1:50:28um so start with the existing state law says that um the combination of city taxes and county-wide taxes can't exceed two percent my understanding from speaking with the Board of Equalization is that the BART tax and the existing measure C tax uh both count as one percent towards

1:50:46that two percent cap El Cerrito has one percent and I believe you're corrected or Renda has one percent it might be Moraga Moraga Moraga has one percent so as a result of El Cerrito and Moraga another county-wide tax can't be passed without special legislation from the

1:51:01state which is why CCTA got authorization from the legislature last year for an additional half percent so right now um the for for the county can't do anything else county-wide without additional legislation I believe other cities are planning to go which would

1:51:19get them to the cap also the the just for point of information for anybody at home or here on page 43 of the budget book it breaks down the various uh tax rates that are that are there and right now it's it shows that our city general fund is three quarters our measure a

1:51:41streets is a half and our measure our general fund is a half um the other thing I wanted to mention is in terms of stop doing I think that we have 15 vacant positions presented and those were all positions that at one time were ably filled by hard-working staff members so

1:52:04it's not realistic to expect the folks picking up those duties to have to work that measure more so that's going to lead to more opportunities to add to our stop doing list and I think you've already identified a few of those areas in Economic Development human resources

1:52:24and elsewhere and just so I can we can move along I just want to say is an excellent presentation and the book is very well written and easy to understand and well organized and I want to thank you and all the staff for all the hard work that went into another challenging but transparent budget thank

1:52:48you I'll just be quick first question I had is the comment that was made earlier about Home Depot and um of the the state um keeping our measure a and measure r Revenue no not this not the state but how it's how it's distributed and how there it's it's incredibly complicated it's how

1:53:18Home Depot collects it as the first first potential problem and they've shifted how they collect it they look and they say we're collecting this one and this one but not this one and then they change their mind and collect other things you're talking about Home Depot

1:53:32here I'm at Home Depot and then how it's distributed by the port of Equalization um so there are a number of different factors and variables that have moved repeatedly over time so that's why we have not assumed any Home Depot revenues going forward okay I haven't gotten to

1:53:48my question yet though my question has to do with um because what I thought I heard said was that our main our Measure A and R revenues are going maybe it wasn't Tom deep I thought it was Home Depot it was Home Depot okay was going towards the money that they could the state considers that we owe

1:54:09Richmond yes potentially yes okay so we're not getting any major a or major R Revenue currently I'm not sure where we currently that's that's correct but just for Home Depot so obviously we're collecting that's somewhere that's what I'm talking about yeah so just the Home Depot oh um

1:54:29in the budget how long a period of time for this budget cycle is that that assumed to occur the whole thing both years okay that was my question okay um I just wanted to comment that I like the uh references to the street strategic plan goals um and um in the last question I wanted to ask

1:54:56was about the um comment that on one of the slides challenges on page 14 attracting aging Baby Boomers outdated low functioning senior centers and I'm wondering if maybe there could be a more positive way of looking at that of trying to find services that would attract

1:55:19Baby Boomers rather than assuming that they would ever under any condition want to go to any Senior Center because I've actually been in a lot of settings where that topic has been discussed generically and I've not heard that baby boomers are interested in senior centers no matter

1:55:41how wonderful they are um well and that's why if you I mean if you look at the participation chart that we showed participation related to the activities and trips and excurs is way up is up significantly so I think we are um consistent with what you're saying it's

1:55:58just the building doesn't always help so why I'm not sure why this that's listing listed as a it's from our point I mean are we assuming that we why are why are we trying to attract baby boomers to the senior centers I think I'm not sure that we're it says that's how I'm reading that I think what

1:56:22we're saying is that if we had a different facility to be able to do more programming that might attract Baby Boomers whether it's the Senior Center or somewhere else we would have more to even more participation than we have actually building on that comment can

1:56:37you go to the next slide 15 the very first bullet you know identify a site for a new community center um does that touch on your thought that you're not calling a senior center because for me I read that Senior Center because we already have a community center so I'm just trying to figure out

1:56:55what that first bullet meant well I think that first bullet if you look at the majority of the new libraries that have built in the last five years they're almost much more like a community center than our library so the point I was trying to make and saying this is that

1:57:12the new library is not likely to be a stereotypical library that you go in and get shushed because you're talking I mean it could have everything from video gaming to computer labs to um so it it's and then in the terms of the needs assessment and what we talked

1:57:28about this year it's it's a lot of flex space and all different types of uses and cross purposes that would add to our current Community Center okay so Chris wants to talk directly I would just add that our current Senior Center doesn't have the space to for the

1:57:47potential growth that we think is out there and I think that the trend is to move away from senior centers and you know a lot of cities call them adult program centers or or something like that um because you do kind of need a hub for activities and so just kind of the

1:58:07senior the current Senior Center isn't really a desirable hub for the active senior right so it um what I'm thinking maybe the the the real issue is is that that um is the identification of the of the needs of the Baby Boomers and then figuring out how to best serve those needs yes yes uh is the is

1:58:35the rather than attracting them to the senior centers which as a baby member made me cringe uh because I don't think you know I've never heard it said that baby boomers want to go to senior centers I've heard of them in surveys we've done even here people have said you know they don't

1:58:55they stay out by they don't consider themselves seniors yeah absolutely yes I agree to get you know so anyway I think I've made my point there um and um so I guess the question I would have now to move the meeting along is you um ask us some questions in the slide and I hit it

1:59:19March can I find it here it is um uh you wanted to know the reasonableness of assumptions do you have a feel for whether or not we've answered that question and whether or not it's have we answered these questions for you yeah I think these are these are fine I

1:59:46think um if you go to the prior slide I think if there are things you if there are things that you want us to come back with in a in a week um then we would we would need to know that and there are a couple clarifying questions but other than that um we if I mean we would be we would

2:00:11presumably be coming back to adopt next week so if there's anything else you want included or want to consider uh that's what we would really need to know I would just make a general comment about now that we're in the two-year budget I feel like not only do we have

2:00:28to think about next year but we need to think two years ahead so I've been staring at slide 28 for during my while the questions have been going on and just looking at these fund balances we have um before us and and in my mind given the discussions we have we've had about

2:00:44balancing we're at the end of our rope almost with how low we can go on reserves um and and really in order to bring those back up to an acceptable level we need new Revenue um and and in my mind when it comes time to to discuss measure R if we are not gonna unless we can get an increase in

2:01:03that measure um I think we're going to have a really tough time looking at 2015-16 and not saying we've done everything we can in terms of cutting costs without laying people off or reducing services and and I feel like 2015-16 is really the year that if we don't get a new Revenue

2:01:20Source we have to start thinking about how to reorganize and how to take a hard look at our strategic plan goals and say there are some things we love to do but we just don't have the money to do it and and keep a and say that we're we're having a financially secure City in

2:01:36terms of keeping an appropriate Reserve level so that's that in my mind I feel like this budget um is is planning for is giving our voters again or or we're going to consider in July whether or not to give our voters the opportunity to weigh in on this but if they weigh in negatively

2:01:53then I think we're going to come back next year for an amendment that will that might be really tough and I would say that was right on point and I think speaking for myself and I think I could probably speak for all the folks in front of you we probably can't do this

2:02:09for much more than another year I mean we really do need to address some of the shortfalls that we've mentioned some of the vacancies you know we have Band-Aids on um but I don't think I I think at some point Point as you said I think the proper term is we have a structural

2:02:28deficit that we would need to address once and for all and the vacancies are either going to get filled or they're going to be eliminated and the services that we provide are going to have to be scaled back right thanks procedurally do we want to take comments from the public I'm yeah but come back

2:02:46and do comments we could if you if you want to stop do we have any okay I have no speaker slips so we're right back okay yeah um I don't have anything more to add other than that we're moving forward with the 14 15 and 16 remains to be seen because there's a lot of assumptions

2:03:06particularly around primarily property tax I would think and I don't know that the dof is going to actually bail us out in any kind of way so I think um looking at increased Revenue by going forward with measure R and assumedly increases where we're at okay Greg yeah so focusing on the slide

2:03:28that that uh councilmember benicini brought us to um to get to six percent we need to get another 187 thousand dollars of unspent Revenue and that that's uh as we go through and we look at the little pieces that we've carved out of here or there um you know I point out the commissions

2:03:51and Boards is twenty eight thousand dollars I mean we are already as thin as we're going to get with regards to expenditures we've got 15 vacancies um you know if we even maintaining those vacancies gives me heartburn that we are not meeting our our a number one provide exemplary Services

2:04:12uh goals so I I'm um you know revenue is the key here and whether the revenue comes from property taxes sales tax um we've done a wonderful job I mean it was pointed out that our Recreation Department funds itself to a very high level it's Revenue because our expenditures

2:04:37are about as low as we we think we can go right now and still provide our city with the services that we currently have grown to expect um so I we've talked about measure R um you know I I there's no specific I mean now is our opportunity to say what would I like to see different next week

2:05:00um I'm not certain I'm not certain that there's anything that we can see different for next week uh because we you know anybody who's looked at this budget knows it's very thin um so I I just want to Echo everyone's comments that it's it's all about the revenue

2:05:20um mark I think it was an emphasized enough and it doesn't require changes to the figures but that a lot of our structural deficit is a direct result of the State of California in there one lack of respect for local government and to their willingness to pass along

2:05:45their problems to local government as they did with the Redevelopment money as they just did in the ballot measure that requires local government to pay for [Music] public records act requests Etc so unfortunately though the state is in much better economic situation now and has a surplus of

2:06:13Revenue it's going to the rainy day fund for the state and no restoration of vital Health and Human Services and no restoration of some of the money they've been siphoning or redirecting from local government including the city of El Cerrito so I think our city has been

2:06:34extremely well run and these external forces like the state that I just mentioned the recession Etc have made the always difficult Balancing Act even more difficult this time and reflecting council members benicini's comments we don't like living on the margin like this it's not the way

2:06:57we would like to govern but unfortunately we don't have any choice right now and we will have to have a partnership with the citizens to identify priorities and get additional funding for those priorities with the support of the people of El Cerrito and without those commitments a

2:07:19lot of the very ambitious things we would like to do like the new community center slash Library like implementing some of the wonderful plans that we've been uh passing in the last couple of years on climate change and San Pablo Avenue etc those aren't going to be

2:07:37possible so I commend the staff for a a relatively masterful juggling act here and feel that there's no put particular changes I would like to see come back next week just a reflection that um we have a lot of challenges and it's going to require a collective effort by our

2:07:59community to meet those challenges or redefine our city government thank you the main comment that I would make is first of all um I think if this is the year more than any other year I'd like to thank staff for the work that was done on this budget I think this is the most

2:08:20difficult budget process we've ever had to deal with and the burden of dealing with that change in in um with dealing with the budget has really been on the backs of our staff and I would really like to thank everyone here and I I think the whole Council feels that way I mean I know we

2:08:42I think we all know that it's been really difficult to figure out how we were going to get through this and I think that you have done a fantastic job of uh making it work to the best that it's possible to make it work under the very dire circumstances so you know I really do

2:09:02want to thank all of the staff for what you've done to make this a better place than it would otherwise be and it really does show in the care that you put into this document and um then the other thing I would like to mention about is I sort of go back to what is a budget it's a planning

2:09:22document it's not necessarily the document that tells you what will what actually happened it's not that document at all and I see it as a living breathing document especially in this two-year cycle um as because we there are a lot of unknowns right now we don't know we have

2:09:42a number of [Music] um we're working on agreements with with different bargaining groups we um don't know the answers to some questions about um lawsuits and and other things so there are a lot of unknowns here that will impact the outcomes so what we're going to be doing

2:10:03I as I see it is over this two-year budget cycle period is we're going to be constantly on um Point looking to see has something changed you know is or do we need to reevaluate something and I think it will be our staff probably that will be the identifying in Scott Hannon is shaking

2:10:25his head yes you know identifying when is the time it we need to make a decision and I know that we have the kind of staff that we can count on to Bringing to bring that to us be it good or be it bad and um I look to the residents of the city of El Cerrito to understand just how difficult a

2:10:47situation we are in right now and to what support us again and if by you know assuming we put something on the ballot this is their opportunity to weigh in on what kind of services they would like to see in our city so that's I guess all I have to say at that moment at this

2:11:07moment so I'm wondering are we done with this agenda item for today okay thank you and so with that we will move on to 7A on our agenda which is to establish salaries benefits and conditions of employment for management and confidential employees and who will handle this item thank you

2:11:30your honor I will I'm Karen Pinkus I say item 7B you said 7A I'm sorry I meant 7B and it's still a joint uh city council public financing Authority and pension trust board item thank you your honor I'm Karen Pincus assistant city manager before you tonight are two resolutions one

2:11:52establishes the salaries benefits and conditions of employment for management and confidential employees the second is a modification of employer paid member contribution for those same employees um employees that are designated as management and confidential are those

2:12:07that are not recognized by a bargaining unit of the city or I'm sorry not represented by recognized bargaining unit of the city management employees are those that are non-public safety managers and supervisors including professional staff analysts project managers confidential employees are

2:12:24hourly employees and they are Technical and specialized staff these both have been the conditions of employment for both groups have been established by city council resolution two separate resolutions the last one for confidential was passed in 2005 the last one for management has been was passed

2:12:43in 2006 but they were amended over several times over the years with changes to things like salaries or control points or any classifications that were added and as pension benefits as part of the balancing measures that were discussed in the budget presentation in April the city

2:13:01considered increased employee contributions to pers benefits the Public Employee Retirement System both management and confidential employee groups are unrepresented so the city council can impose changes on those groups by resolution in reviewing the resolutions for these

2:13:17groups though staff determined that the various amendments over time have necessitated um coming up with a clean updated resolution and that both resolutions had a vast majority of the language is exactly the same so it made sense to staff and we with the city attorney's

2:13:37concurrence that these resolutions could be combined um a couple the major changes that are in this resolution before you um the first one has to do with the aforementioned balancing measures uh since 2012 management employees have paid four percent of the total costs of

2:13:55the employees contribution to pers which is a total of eight percent the city has contributed the remaining four percent which is known as the employer paid member contribution confidential employees have mirrored the SEIU bargaining unit benefits and so at this

2:14:10point the confidential employees are currently paying three percent of their salary of the total cost and the city is contributing the remaining five percent the proposed resolution eliminates the city's contribution to the employer paid member contribution so that both

2:14:24management and confidential employees would pay the full eight percent effective July 1st this would result in and this also includes uh the city manager the this would result in savings of 135 000 uh for the fiscal year and that covers all funds the other major update to the resolution

2:14:45has to do with vacation accrual um we want to encourage employees to use their vacation time and it's well known that employees wellness and morale and productivity do improve when they actually take time off but also considering that we have been dealing with a lot of the vacancies and a lot of

2:15:05hours worked by the people in this room and many others we do want to make sure to encourage them to be able to take that time off and refresh and come back recharged um we're recommending improvements to this benefit that we currently have currently the employees have a soft cap

2:15:22of 112.55 hours of vacation each year any hours in excess can be carried over with the approval of the city manager and they can be cashed out once a year some of the improvements that we're recommending would be changing this benefit to a hard cap this would be two

2:15:40times the accrual rate of each person which is based on their years of service um that what this would mean was the cap for an employee with 10 years of service would then increase to 270 hours as opposed to the 112 but then it becomes a hard cap and the employee would stop

2:15:56accruing at the time the cap was was met for those employees we have about eight employees of this group that are would exceed the cap this would the they would not lose those benefits they would go into a separate vacation bank that bank would be a one-time use and that they

2:16:13could draw down from that bank in addition to the um the accrual that they would be um subject to additionally it would be proposed that the vacation Cash Out regulations are increased from 10 vacation days available to be cashed out to 16 provided that the employee takes 16 days

2:16:31of vacation within the previous fiscal year and maintain a vacation balance of 37.5 hours this would also help the city reduce some of the accrued vacation balances that are on the books that are often paid out in large sums upon employee separation from the city

2:16:49as well as it would be more in line with when the vacation time is cashed out in line with the salary that they're currently earning it at um additional updates um particularly the confidential employees being included in this same resolution would now they would now

2:17:05mirror all of the other benefits um of management employees as opposed to SEIU employees um which means that longevity pay would no longer be paid but this was rolled into their salary um we also included recycling operations supervisor up to this point it had not

2:17:24been designated to a particular group and one more um excuse me update was that bereavement leave has been increased from three days to five days so as I said this would save the city 135 000 over all funds 105 000 of which would be specifically general fund savings I do want to

2:17:44um point out that there are three Corrections that I would like to propose to the um resolution um on page nine the management resolution the management confidential resolution on page nine section 5.7 the first sentence instead of access would be excess e-x-c-e-s-s that was a

2:18:06um homonym page 13 section 9.1 A2 and to change the word commence to C's so that over time actually seizes when um the employee is released or the work is completed not when it does not begin at that point and then on page nine I'm sorry to flip back to page 9 section 5.8 uh it says

2:18:3112-month period as opposed to that should be changed to fiscal year so that it's not a rolling 12-month period where someone can cash out it would be within that fiscal year that they're um that their vacation benefits accrue so in the previous fiscal year they would be able

2:18:46to once they take 16 days they could Cash Out 16 days in the following fiscal year and lastly I would like to thank the management and confidential employee groups in particular over the past few years they've shown a lot of leadership when it comes to trying to assist the

2:19:03city with the financial challenges that we face and so I just want to make sure that I recognize that and I understand the challenges that we are all facing together and I'm just really thankful that they've been able to show the leadership that they have with that if you have questions I'm

2:19:18happy to answer to answer any questions from the council yeah I have a question about the holidays on page five um you know I've been involved with a variety of government entities and I think we're the only one that I know that gives Christmas Eve day as a holiday

2:19:37would it make sense to make that a and this may be subject to negotiations on collective bargaining make that a floating holiday and those who want to take that day but there may be people who practice another religion who would like to take a holiday of their own choosing or a day

2:19:56of their own choosing and we could save some money in overtime if we made that a floating holiday we are we have been at least the past however many years we've been closed on that day um and so that is it's partially uh the city Hall's been closed on that day for

2:20:14this group in particular that that has been a recognized holiday for them as the as the building and it has been but doesn't that doesn't mean it has to be right I also think it's mirrored seiu's contract um in terms of Staffing and overlap but I don't think anyone would object to it

2:20:37being a floating holiday I'm not sure that there's any operational impacts to doing it we can require floating holidays to be used during that closed period so when the city closes on what we typically do is um that you are yes you are required to use your leave balances to fill the close

2:20:59period whether that lead balance is floating holiday administrative leave vacation just not sick pay unless you're actually sick correct we actually have it it isn't we actually are since we're closed from that day through the new year it does essentially count as that

2:21:22floating holiday for those people but if for people who don't have enough um people have to use leave for a number of those days already we close down for a few days starting then going and my understanding of the history of this and I'm a retire of UC Berkeley and we

2:21:45have always had that but but the whole theory of the thing is that not much work gets done then anyway and if you close down the entire operation you can for example turn off heating systems and save money but if that becomes a day when some people work then you can no longer

2:22:03recognize those savings um I I don't want to speak for for councilmember Friedman but I believe what he's his question is is that it would we would not we would be changing the name of it from Christmas Eve day as a paid holiday to a floating holiday and you're you're correct

2:22:29staff would have to use some form of leave whether it's a floating holiday or administrative leave to when the when the city hall is closed that day so we can have the economic Savings of turning the heating system off they would have to use some form of leave and and this

2:22:47is just a just recognizing that Christianity is not the only religion that's out there so I'm where where is the change proposed the change proposed would be under 3.1 a we would strike Christmas Eve day and under 3.2 a we would put in annually for floating holidays

2:23:17I don't understand how that would a floating holiday to me means that they can the employee would choose when to take it correct so it gives the employee more flexibility in when they want to take the day off and if and as I understand what council member Lyman is saying if

2:23:33the building is closed you could still use your floating holiday or you could use something else Administration do we need to then say here um do we need to have a statement in here that the building will be closed between you know for that period of time and employees are required to use no

2:23:59leave so with all due respect mayor right now we are closing with our our policy is to close the city for those days if for some reason we choose to leave it open because the calendar like last year the calendar gets all wonky and we need to be open today then it's not a holiday and we're not paying

2:24:20holiday pay on that day and um it you know then it's it's not something we have to deal with so so I I actually for all all the reasons that councilmember Friedman brings this up but it also gives us operational flexibility if for some reason we have to be open on Christmas Eve

2:24:40I like I'm that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about those other days that have no holiday name associated with them let's call them the remaining three days in between in the week before January 1st correct so usually that's what it is Boxing Day the 26th the 27th

2:25:01has got some other name the 28th oh those days don't there three they're usually in about three days that have no name in there that but what I'm asking the question I'm asking is do we have need to have a blanket thing in here to specify when we're opened and when

2:25:20we're closed yeah no no I don't think so no I'm assuming you have a policy that says when the city is closed they must use administrative leave vacation or holiday pay foreign agencies I know of have a little bit of a problem with um that with the lack of that kind of a

2:25:50statement that's one of the really is the reason I'm actually mentioning it I can see it it um it would be a 3.4 if we were going to have it that would just say when City Hall is closed you must use it would be when the city is closed Cycling Center Etc Rec Center

2:26:09when the city is closed right it could be the community center it could be the public safety building it could be the recycling center it could be the senior center it depends on what the year is and what the budget year is and if we're trying to save more money and we want to

2:26:24close other facilities let me ask this you a question city manager is it better for the city going forward from your perspective to leave it as it is or make the changes suggested by council member Lyman I I think the easiest way to say it is we haven't had any we have

2:26:44not had any problems to date and we wouldn't want to do anything that would hurt our flexibility going forward because we might want to be open that week so I would want to be really careful if we were to craft some sort of language I would just not want to give

2:27:01up any flexibility at all well the the way that the solutions for the problem of the other is to have it the way you actually functionally do it is that the city announces for each year what they're going to be with those clothes you know what the close period is

2:27:21and then um and then people are basically notified that either they're if they don't have enough leave that's really what the issue is more about isn't if they don't have enough leave then they're going to have to do it'll be time without pay or they'll be reassigned

2:27:39it well unless the whole thing is closed well some reason I don't think that's probably true here because recent fire will probably be open yes um we have we've had a few instances where put we have asked people to go work in another location that didn't want to use

2:27:56their time I'm just saying that really we want to get have it set up so that we can control it so what I'm hearing is it's really you're is council member Friedman just asked you should be changes it's not a problem you like the flexibility we should leave it as it is

2:28:15because it's been it's been fine um if if you wanted to craft new language I want to make sure that it doesn't Tire hands it doesn't work well I think the way that council member Lyman was proposing it would give you more flexibility but um I feel like there's two issues here

2:28:32there was one issue that councilmember Lyman brought up is which was we could add a sentence which said when the city is closed you have to use your administrative lead that was one question and to that you said I don't really want to add language to this contract at this point that would tie my

2:28:45hands but then there was the other question about I'm sorry I'll let you go on that one first yeah I mean again it's situational um this is the management group it's not any other group um everything else would be bargainable so we'd have to be a little more thoughtful about it maybe and how it

2:29:03affects operations you know again I don't want to do anything that would tie our hands I think the language if you added a sentence saying that if City Hall is closed you either need to make reasonable accommodations or um use available appropriate leave balances

2:29:21it's not just leave out like you like councilmember this you can't use sick time unless you're sick yeah according according to this if you're on leave and you get sick for more than 24 hours you can I mean you can retroactively change it but um which I agree with I don't have a

2:29:39problem with that let me say that I made my point and I think that the explanations have been forthcoming which makes sense to me and if it's not broke don't fix it at this time on the Fly and if for next time this comes up we'll give some time to examine if any of this

2:29:58language needs to be changed for purposes of flexibility Etc uh if council member alignment is okay with that I I'm fine I I leave it as is is okay with me as well I I have one item that I would like to recommend on 5.8 which is vacation cash out page nine for those eight employees that do have

2:30:31excess because the separate vacation bank for excess hours I would like to add a sentence that says that um the excess hour you know if one of those eight people goes to cash out time that they need to cash out their Access First yeah so the sentence the sentence would

2:30:58be it would be second to last sentence so prior to all requests must be in writing it would be uh employees must reduce their separate vacation Bank first when Cashing Out vacation and is the purpose of that to reduce accrual to then other to the non-vacation bank to their

2:31:37regular accrual just to reduce our liability for that extra vacation as soon as possible just to kind of close out that set aside bank as soon as possible right I mean to keep track of it and right to administer it to from administrative perspective try and eliminate these special accounts as soon

2:31:55as possible so that we're not we're not tracking them right tracking these grandfathered cases okay I I support that uh just just a question on this about how many employees each year typically would sell vacation I don't have a number actually in front of me I could find that out wow

2:32:22it may be not so common a practice given the restrictions we have on but I agree with council member lyman's it's relatively common yeah it's pretty common It's relatively common common oh okay any other comments from the council um I just have one question is the um

2:32:43realized saving of 135 000 reflected in this budget Scott sorry I say that again 100 yes I believe so that of the 135 000 savings with the contributions to be selected in this budget thank you correct sorry do we have any um speaker slips no okay are there any other comments or would

2:33:06someone like to make a motion I would be delighted to make a motion let me see I would like to make a resolution of the city council of the city of El Cerrito establishing salaries benefits and conditions of employment for management and confidential employees effective July 1st 2014 and

2:33:26rescinding resolutions 20 25 84 and 2006-52 and all resolutions amendatory with the op with the change with the addition of one sentence into item 5.8 uh as previously stated second and and the changes that uh were recommended by uh assistant city manager Pincus

2:33:52and that's in your second too Mark yes it is thank you okay ready to vote all in favor please say aye aye in the opposition or any abstentions motion carries unanimously with that one made him move the second resolution before you is essentially memorializing this uh with respect to

2:34:14you as the governing body being able to make those changes in which we will notify pers that the city management and confidential employees will no longer pay City will no longer pay the employer paid member contribution to purse so I move a resolution of the city council of

2:34:28the city of El Cerrito modifying reporting and payment of employer-paid member contributions for management and confidential employees second okay a motion by Lyman seconded by Bridges all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposition any abstentions motion cares

2:34:45unanimously so with that we move on to item number eight council local and Regional liaison assignment reports yes I'll just make one report uh councilmember Friedman and I both attended the West County mayor's association meeting on May 22nd we had a presentation from East Bay mud which was

2:35:04very interesting with regards to all of the different ways we can conserve water and I did pick up a couple Flyers if anybody wants to take a look um I'll just leave it at that they had a lot of information about landscaping and mulching and they have books out there

2:35:21which discuss the different plants that one can choose that are the best for water conservation we also had a presentation on Doctors Hospital and council member Friedman already reported what the county is is considering doing the presentation generally was uh just

2:35:39wanted to update us as to the cash position of the hospital that as of July they'll be running out of cash um so at that point the the choices are closing the hospital just stopping paying employees which would mean the hospital would kind of close on on its own because employees

2:35:56would stop showing up or the state would close the hospital because it would be deemed to be an unsafe location because there are no employees there so it was just sort of a series of sort of functionally what would happen if they if and when they do run out of cash

2:36:09without these measures being placed on the ballot in November if a measure is placed on the ballot in November then the board I think would take discussions on how to bridge that funding Gap to get them through to November to see whether or not they could raise money through

2:36:24the sales tax so that was the president anything to add Mark yes that there's a public hearing or there was tonight in San Pablo on this issue because a legal requirement and preparation for the potential closing is that they hold public hearings about the potential

2:36:41closure so I think the feeling is that if it appears likely that the county is going to put a measure on the ballot getting over the hurdles we talked about earlier that there are entities who would be willing to loan the approximately 20 million dollars that the hospital would need in order to stay

2:37:03open until that ballot measure is voted on and if for some reason the ballot measure was put on the ballot and defeated then the hospital has property that would be sold to pay off the loan of whatever entity were to pay that loan to keep it going do you think the assessor will bring

2:37:26forth the cash sooner in that situation are you finished yes thank you and you didn't hear it the design review board met last week to consider the signage at El Cerrito del Norte Plaza okay um and um with that um we'll adjourn the meeting in memory of Andy Gooden senior who was

2:37:57known for a number of things in our community he was a very special person I actually did attend his funeral on Friday and the room was very very full of people who recognized him for his many accomplishments one of which was that he was a member of our former El Cerrito recycling task force and that

2:38:23is the group that for those of you who were around in those times brought co-mingled recycling to El Cerrito after discussions that were were had and um the um he was also very instrumental in starting a group called The Gooden College connection scholar and Outreach

2:38:46programs which uh looked at the issue of applying for college and getting ready for college and the fact that many disadvantaged students are unable to complete that process because it in and of itself is a barrier to going to college and so they provided um scholarships to cover the fees that

2:39:10people had to pay for those admission charges and also tutors to help people prepare their applications and that program has been very successful and a number of students from our community of West County especially El Cerrito High School have in fact successfully

2:39:31attended College after going through this program so he really it's been a very very successful program and he led the way on that and so we will miss him greatly and that our meeting is adjourned until Tuesday June 17th at 7 pm thank you