The meeting focused on the city's general fund financial outlook, a detailed breakdown of expenditures and revenues, and a proposed 1% city sales and use tax increase dedicated to public safety (police and fire). The presentation was led by Matthew Liu (Finance), with contributions from City Manager De'Carlon Seewood and Police Chief Jill Schloody and Fire Chief Brad Schafer. No formal votes were taken; the session was informational for the council to consider next steps toward a potential August 2026 ballot measure.
All right, I'll go ahead. Oh, I'm not close to that. Go ahead and call our February 16th, 2026 pre-council to order. Our main topic today is the general fund outlook and revenue proposal. So I'm assuming I just kick this over to you, Matthew Liu. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. And can I ask before we get into it? Do you want us to ask questions as you go through the slides or wait until the end and then discussion? If if you have questions, we'd be happy to answer them as we go. Perfect. Thank you. So we have a few discussion points for uh today, and they are here as follow. We're gonna talk a little bit about the general fund, uh FTEs, and the expense breakdown. And when we do this, we'll do this for each of the functional groups within the general fund. Uh then we'll look at the revenue for the general fund. We'll look at sales and use tax outlook, uh additional general sales and use tax, and then uh what the priorities would be for that additional uh sales and use tax or additional revenue. So here you have a breakdown of general fund expenditures for the uh fiscal year 26 budget. Uh as you can see, public safety makes up almost half of our expenditures in the budget, uh, followed up by uh health and environment, which includes uh the health department. Here's what the FTE count looks that looks like for that same uh breakdown within the general fund. So public safety makes up over half of that of the general fund uh full-time equivalence, and then again that's followed by uh health and environment that includes the health department. So for public works, uh public works, and uh and this in our definition within the general fund uh has streets and engineering and then parking enforcement. Uh the changes for fiscal year 26 or through this time period. So the time period we're looking at is basically 19 through 26. And so uh we've had the addition uh addition of administrative uh supervisor and and 26 and then parking enforcement. Uh it went to police and then it went back to uh public works within this time period as well. And so uh looking at the funding for public works, about 70% of our funding for public works comes from the transportation sales tax. So uh the funding mechanism for each of these functional groups is very important, uh, and you'll see why when we come to public safety. Yeah, thanks. Uh Matthew, when public when parking moved from police to uh public works, the funding follow it, or how is how is that work? Uh so parking is has the enforcement feats. Is it in like are you asking about the funding for parking? Yeah, uh parking enforcement and how you know personnel we paid for previous too. So uh most of that funding came from just uh general revenues or wasn't a specific uh funding source for parking enforcement, so that didn't really change when it moved to public safety from part for public works, but it was more just moving it from one category to the other. Thanks. So here are the FTEs for public works. So it's kind of up and down, and uh you can see that movement and 21 was that shift uh back to uh the police department, and then uh you see they they came back, I believe in 25 is when it when it came back. Here's the budget breakdown uh for that same time period. So we increased from a little over 11 million uh to just under 17 million within that time period. Just quickly just to point out on all these slides, the the blue is gonna represent salaries and weight and wages and then other expenditures are in order. So just kind of that's kind of a key color uh combination throughout these uh slides going forward. And just to clarify, other expenditures, especially for um general fund also um would be things like contractual services, fleeting yeah, basically it's traveling training, uh materials and supplies, contractual services that makes up the bulk of that. Basically, it's traveling training, uh, materials and supplies, contractual services that makes up the bulk of that. Thank you. So health and environment, uh the offices or the the uh departments that are within health and environment are uh public health and human services, community development, housing neighborhood programs, economic development, cultural affairs, and the office of sustain sustainability. Uh the changes within this time period uh where the additions of code enforcement specialists and fiscal year 25. Uh the funding, so 33% of all health expenses are offset by the county, and then health also receives around 4.4 in state uh and federal grants, and that's for fiscal year 26. It's been more in some years, it's been less than some years. So and then sustained sustainability receives their funding from the utilities. So you want to make the distinction that we talk about health and net narrative, it's the public health department.