I'm Amy Cunningham, Novato City Manager, and I want to sincerely thank you for being here tonight for the fiscal year 26-27 Community Budget Workshop.

Whether you're here in the room or joining us online, where it probably looks very awkward at this point, your engagement does matter.

Because this process, our budget isn't just about numbers.

It's about people, it's about priorities, and it's about the kind of community we want to build together.

Every year, this is our opportunity to step back and ask what matters most, where should we invest, and how do we continue to make Navado a place where we're all proud to call home?

That's why your voice is so important, and the decisions made through this process shape our services, our neighborhoods and businesses, and our future.

Your input helps ensure those decisions reflect the values of this community.

Transparency isn't just a goal for us, it's a commitment.

Tonight's workshop, along with our surveys and pop-up events through the community are all about creating space for conversation, for questions, and for real engagement.

We want to hear from you.

Whether you're here in this room or you're watching online or you're out at one of our events.

In November of 2024, our community came together to pass Measure M, the three quarter cent sales tax that's that stays here locally.

That vote was more than a funding decision.

It was a statement about what we value and what we're willing to invest in.

Because of that support, we've been able to strengthen our financial foundation, restore critical services, and make meaningful investments in public safety, roads, and parks.

And while we're proud of that progress, what's even more important is where we go next.

We know that there's still plenty of work to do, and there are still opportunities to improve, to invest, and to build a stronger and more resilient Novato.

And we can only do that together.

So tonight isn't just about a budget, it's about a shared vision for our future.

So thank you for being here for being engaged and for being part of what makes this community so strong.

And at this point, I'll turn it over to our finance director, Carla Carballo de Graff, and she'll lead the budget workshop.

All right, thank you, Amy.

As City Manager Cunningham said, Paul in not as few words as these, public involvement is critical.

And I also want to thank those here and those of you watching.

We appreciate your time and are happy that you are interested in the city's budget.

This too many things.

This uh this slide is our agenda.

Tonight we'll walk through the city's budget process and highlight the many ways you can participate.

By the end of this workshop, you will have a clearer picture of our current general fund forecast, the operating budget, and the projects included in the capital improvement program.

So we'll start with budget development.

The budget development process begins in February with an initial survey asking how you'd like us to engage with you throughout the budget process.

We also conduct a budget priorities survey and host a community budget workshop like the one we're holding tonight.

In addition, we're continuing our budget pop-ups, which we launched last year to meet people where they are and make participation easier.

In April, we move into formal budget development.

This year we've split the study session into two parts, one focused on the operating budget and one focused on the capital improvement program.

We return in May with updates at the budget workshop so the community and council can see how the budget is taking shape and receive direction from council on the budget.

In June, we hold the official budget hearing, and the city council then adopts the budget before the fiscal year ends on June 30th.

Finance works closely with public works to develop the capital improvement program, and that budget follows the same overall timeline.

Various commissions review the budget throughout the process with the Finance Advisory Commission involved at every stage.

And importantly, the community is welcome to participate in any of these meetings.

This is our budget priorities survey, which closed on March 23rd.

It's one of the key ways for you to tell us what matters most to you.

The survey gives community members a chance to share priorities and offer comments on anything happening in the city related to budget.

In our initial review of the community survey results, three priorities rose to the top public safety, streets and medians maintenance, and business retention and attraction.

These are the same three that were the top three in the prior year.

And these areas obviously reflect the issues community members told us matter most to them.

We use a wide range of communication tools so residents can stay informed and whatever way works best for them.

Email outreach is one of our strongest channels with more than 13,000 news release subscribers and over 21,000 newsletter subscribers.

Social media helps us share updates quickly across Facebook, Instagram, and X and LinkedIn, reaching more than 13,000 followers.

And we use community-based platforms like Nextdoor and Novado in the know.

Open Novato serves as our dedicated survey platform, helping us gather input through surveys like the budget survey I just showed.

And together, these channels create a broad communication network, helping ensure transparency and keeping the community engaged.

An important part of the budget process is the strategic plan.

Typically, your strategic plan links into your budget process.

However, City Council has not yet begun work on a new strategic plan.

They were originally scheduled to start this process earlier in the fiscal year, but following the passing of council member Milburg, the session was postponed to allow time for the council and the community and staff to grieve and regroup.

Council is now scheduled to meet on April 17th to begin development of the new strategic plan.

In the meantime, the city is continuing to work on remaining items that had not been completed from the 23-25 strategic plan.

And community participation is encouraged at this meeting as well.

Um revenue sources.

The operating budget is funded mainly by general fund revenues, things like property tax, sales tax, transient occupancy tax, and business licenses, and also measure M.

These revenues are unrestricted, which means they support the city's day-to-day services and operations.

The capital budget, on the other hand, is funded mostly by restricted revenue, although it can be funded by unrestricted revenue as well.

But examples of restricted revenue are gas tax and parks measure A funds.

Restricted funds can only be used for specific purposes and they flow into the capital improvement program, which supports long-term projects like streets, facilities, and parks.

So while both budgets are essential, they operate differently and are funded by different types of revenues.

The major revenues that fund the operating budget are property tax and sales tax, being the two largest share of our ongoing funding, which you'll see a bit later in the presentation.

We also receive transient occupancy tax and fees from permits and programs like building permits and recreation programs and business license fees from businesses operating in Novato.

All these sources work together to fund the day-to-day services our community depends on.

So a little more on property tax.

City Council reduced property the property tax rate by 19% in fiscal years 75 to 79.

Proposition 13 lock Novato into a 7% rate going forward.

It's the lowest share of the 1% basic property tax for Marin County cities.

So while property values grow, property tax increasing as a revenue is slow and incremental.

So our sales tax rate is 9.2%.

And it's broken out as shown in this pie chart with various agencies getting a percent, their percentage of the sales tax or their piece of the pie, and the city of Novato getting 2%.

So you can see like the state gets 3.9 and the county gets 2.5% and so on.

The 2% of locally controlled sales tax is broken down as follows.

The 1% Bradley Burns tax, which is our baseline local share, quarter percent, which is measure C, which was a voter approved tax, and then the most recent voter approved sales tax measure M at three quarters of a percent, and that adds up to the 2%.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about the five-year general fund forecast and Measure M.

This chart shows our long-term general fund forecast with Measure M backfilling our systemic deficit and adding back staffing as well to sustain critical city services.

The gray bars represent general fund expenditures, and the red bars show general fund revenues over time.

The red line that goes across the chart tracks annual surplus or deficit.

And in the current fiscal year on out, the budgets are balanced, so the surplus is zero.

Looking at the early years on the left side of the chart, the deficits started at around 1.2 million and range to $2.4 million.

And then towards the middle of the chart, you see the general funds starting to get back in balance, and again, resulting in a surplus of zero.

This means that with Measure M in place, the city can maintain ongoing operations without deficits.

Now this is kind of a bleak graph.

This is what the general fund forecast would be without Measure M.

Again, the gray bars represent the general fund expenditures and the red bars show general fund revenues.

The red line shows our annual surplus or deficit.

The line would drop sharply into deficit spending with a negative 1.2 million at the start, which is in a prior fiscal year, but going all the way to over $9 million.

And that's of course, it does include our added back resources, which wouldn't happen if we didn't have Measure M to begin with.

The reason that this happens is that expenditures continue to rise with inflation and service demands.

But without Measure M revenue, our general fund really just could not keep pace.

Deficits of this nature would require service reductions, cuts, and identification of new revenues, all something the city has worked on over the last several years.

And this is the Measure M forecast.

The green box in the center lists the estimated annual available Measure M amounts after Measure M is used to fund operating needs.

This is the amount that can be used to fund capital projects, deferred maintenance, and other needs.

The available amount ranges from about $2.1 million at the start to about 1.6 million dollars by the end of the forecast period.

The takeaway on the bar chart is the yellow portion at the top of each bar represents the portion of Measure M that is available for those other purposes.

Once baseline personnel costs, scheduled salary and benefit adjustments are covered.

So beginning in fiscal year 24-25, we received only one quarter, quarter four of that fiscal year receipts of Measure M because it was effective April 1st of 2025.

Those Measure M revenues were $2.1 million.

And at that time, council used those funds, directed that those funds be used to replenish reserves.

And that was critical because it allows the remaining Measure M funds in the current year and in the projected years to be used for infrastructure, capital projects, you know, building parks, that type of thing.

Again, the yellow segment is what is left over for infrastructure maintenance and community priorities.

And over time, that yellow portion stays relatively small.

Um, it is it is limited funding, so we still have to decide the best way to use the resources and get council guidance on that as well as community input.

So, how has Measure M been spent?

This slide shows how Measure M dollars have been used to support the city's priorities over the last two uh budget cycles.

Again, you'll see in the 24-25 amended budget column that and the actuals that uh the funds were used to replenish the uh two reserves, the emergency reserve and our self-insurance uh reserve.

And then there were there was a a little bit allotted for public works get started to get started on um street maintenance and weed abatement.

In the 25-26 budget, Measure M played an even more significant role by helping the city address multiple needs at once.

It filled the systemic budget deficit, restored key resources that had been reduced during prior budget challenges, addressed deferred maintenance, managed financial liabilities, improving the city's long-term financial health, supported innovation and investment, including the tenant improvement grant program, and setting aside funds for the new financial system, and it funded capital projects, in particular streets and the new permit system.

All together, Measure M is a critical tool for maintaining city services, investing in infrastructure, and strengthening long-term financial sustainability.

Now I'm going to turn it over to Jennifer Maldonado, our principal analyst who manages the budget to review the operating budget.

Thank you, Carla.

Good evening, everybody.

My name is Jennifer Maldonado.

I'm a member of the finance team here at the City of Novado.

I'm going to be walking everybody through the operating budget tonight, and then I'll be passing the microphone over to our public works director, Chris, so he can go through the capital budget.

In June of 2025, we adopted the city's budget at 57.7 million dollars in both revenue and expense, allowing the city to adopt its first balance budget in many years, made possible by Measure M.

The next two slides will demonstrate the city's revenue and expense budgets in more detail to help guide an understanding of how the city's budget is structured.

Beginning with revenue, the city's general fund revenue for fiscal year 2025-26 has an adopted budget of 57.73 million.

The top two revenue sources for the city are property tax and sales tax.

These two combined make up approximately 64% of the general funds revenue.

Additionally, other sources of revenue the city receives are from transfers in from other funds to offset certain eligible costs, and this is budget at $7.7 million for the current year.

Next, we have charges for services, which again offset certain costs associated with getting construction permits, plan checks, recreation programs, and this is budgeted at $6.06 million for the current year.

Next, we have other taxes budgeted at $5.24 million.

This includes things like franchise fees, hotel tax, and business license.

And this makes up approximately 9% of general fund revenue.

And then we have the remaining 3% or $2 million budgeted for grants, fines, intergovernmental purposes, and all of our other categories.

Now let's take a look at how the city's operating expenses are budgeted.

Novato is a service-driven organization powered by people who would deliver essential services to the community from police to public works to parks and recreation and admin staff.

These teams ensure the city operates effectively each day.

And as a result, the city's largest expense is personnel, so salaries and benefits, which account for approximately 68% of general fund expense.

The remaining expense is made up of operating expense at 11%, including things like insurance and repairs and maintenance.

Then we have our professional services, which is 10% of the city's budget used to contract specialized services.

And then finally, we have our transfers out category, which is about 4%, which supports things like our debt obligations and infrastructure and maintenance funds.

Next, I'm going to be providing an overview of city staffing.

This slide provides a historical look at city staffing, showing how, with the passage of Measure M, the city has begun restoring positions that were reduced over the past several decades.

The next slide offers a visual of how staffing in Novato has changed over the past 20 years for even more context.

Staffing levels have fluctuated over the past 20 years in response to the changing and often uncertain funding source with a high of 232 FTEs or full-time equivalent employees in 2007-2008.

And now with more stable funding in place through Measure M, the city's position to begin a more deliberate and sustained restoration of staffing.

With that, I will pass the microphone over to our public works director, Chris, to go over our capital program.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Good evening, everybody.

My name is Chris Benini.

I am Novato's public works director.

And today I'm excited to talk to you about the capital improvement program, starting with uh just a general overview.

So the CIP capital improvement program.

I'll be saying CIP regularly, so please uh keep that in mind.

Uh it's a five-year revolving plan.

It's uh the city's roadmap for major infrastructure projects.

Uh and we update this plan every year to reflect changing priorities, changing costs and available funding.

Uh and the list you can see towards the bottom, it really identifies uh the different ways we look at it.

So anything from staff capacity to uh you know specific project assessment reports and you know, criticality consequence of failure for different pieces of infrastructure infrastructure across the city.

Uh and we also do community engagement such as tonight, stakeholder engagement across the city with different departments and uh you know uh council members.

Uh switching to the next slide.

So specifically for this year, we had several goals and objectives that we wanted to uh use to prioritize projects.

Uh we do this carefully because funding is limited.

Uh initiating new projects where there's significant impacts is always important.

Uh and aligning project management load with public work staff capacity is uh very much related to what we did by defunding projects that are not being worked on and reprogramming to consolidate our efforts and really uh align what we're working with uh across all of public works, both in a courtyard and in our engineering division, so that everything's aligned and streamlined.

Uh and also from a budgetary standpoint, minimizing the number of fund sources per project to simplify accounting.

One important thing to keep in mind is that most capital improvement project funding is restricted.

Uh Carla alluded to this earlier.

We're gonna dive in a little bit deeper.

Uh so the restricted funds that we use, uh, we split across three different major categories.

So streets and pathways, parks and rec facilities, municipal buildings.

Uh wanted to explain this list a little bit to everybody tonight because there's a lot of acronyms built in.

Um TAM measure AA is the first category in streets and pathways.

TAM would be the transportation authority of Marin.

Uh measure AA is a sales tax measure that is allocated to cities across the entire county.

Um the GAX excise tax, HUDA is actually the highway users tax account.

Uh State Bill One Gas Tax Act, the RMRA stands for road maintenance and rehabilitation account.

Uh these are two state level funding sources that's allocated to cities and counties across the state.

Um within Ren County, uh vehicle registration fees is another source.

The developer fees is something that we use across all three categories.

So you can see it in all three columns, but uh the restrictions that we have is mainly about what percent of a project can be funded by the developer impact fees.

So when a you know building is built, when a neighborhood is built, uh, we collect impact fees through these projects, and then we reallocate them to improve infrastructure across the city.

Um specific to parks and recreation.

Uh Quimby subdivision fees.

When a new residential development is built, uh fees are collected, and then they're used for new park infrastructure.

Uh and then also the county parks measure A.

That is a one-quarter cent sales tax uh collected at the county level and then also distributed to cities and across uh the county.

Lastly, municipal buildings.

We utilize long-term maintenance and developer fees.

So the general fund really do go to parks and rec facilities in municipal buildings.

And Scarlett said those are the two non-restricted funds that help out with the capital projects.

More numbers, a lot of columns, but really wanted to dive in a bit deeper to show what the budget outline and outlook is.

This is what we use for CIP projects.

And the numbers are in millions, and long-term maintenance, as we saw in the previous slide, primarily for facilities and for parks projects.

Stable across all years in the next five-year forecast.

But really, what's interesting, TAM measure AA, which is for transportation projects.

We have a unique uh opportunity this year.

Uh the Transportation Authority of Marin is uh changing an allocation and how they distribute these sales taxes to the municipalities and the county government.

Uh it used to be collected every fiscal year held by the Transportation Authority of Marin and then released the next fiscal year as a you know at the beginning of a fiscal year.

Now they're switching over to a reimbursement uh it's a reimbursement model, which that means instead of holding it in TAM for one year, they're actually releasing the funds immediately for reimbursement.

So unique to 2627, it's a double allocation.

So we're not only receiving last year's TIE sales taxes that were collected, we're gonna be entering into the reimbursement for this year.

So it's a good opportunity for us to really make make a lot of projects on a lot of great uh projects.

And then uh also unique TAM measure B.

Uh, this is a $10 vehicle registration fee.

TAM uh collects these, and you know, it's not the largest fund available, so they hold it for three years.

And so once every three years it's uh you know distributed to municipalities across the county.

And we next slide.

So shifting gears.

We wanted to highlight several ongoing capital improvement projects that uh they were approved in previous years, but we're making progress on them, and we really wanted to bring it to everybody's attention.

So uh our largest ongoing project right now is the Nevada Boulevard Improvements Project.

Uh this is probably in the forefront of everyone's minds as they commute across Novato.

Uh and we're excited to be wrapping up the utility relocation phase of telephone poles, power poles moving out of the right away, and uh getting close to finishing up.

So it's PG ⁇ E work, Frontier, ATT, the communication companies are have at the at the end of recloding, relocating their projects.

The city and the sanitary district and the water North Marin Water District have uh cooperated and they're partnering to do a joint project management and project inspection contract.

So the project management and contract or inspection contract is actually currently posted for bids right now.

Uh we anticipate that wrapping up in the coming months, and then going out to procure construction services for the summer.

And the so that will be the next phase after utility relocates for communication and power is going to be the utility districts partnering with Navado to begin a three-phase construction to actually finish the project.

And we anticipate this phase to last roughly 18 months, so beginning late summer into you know next uh 2027 into this fall.

Next project.

Uh another exciting project.

We have the Hamilton Amphitheater Park Playground Improvements Project.

So this is uh just a snapshot into the planning process.

So you can see the image on the left is you know how an engineering team looks at a playground.

We will look at our play equipment, and what are the fall areas?

And so if there's a swing, where is somebody likely to fall?

We we have a radius around these types of devices, and we make sure that there's no overlap, make sure that there's safety.

So the budget for this project is $700,000.

There's going to be ADA improvements not only to the area immediately surrounding the playground, but the parking lot and the restrooms up the hill.

And there's going to be a new water fountain installed and just leveling a lot of concrete flags that have gone askew.

Thanks, project.

Another Broadway widening project is the Olive Avenue widening project.

This is in the final phases two of the communication and power utility relocates.

This design is at 100%.

And this image is another depiction of what happens in the engineering process.

This is a striping plan.

And uh it's the eastern half of the project.

So if you can picture in your minds uh the Trader Joe's parking lot in that big gravel empty area on the east side towards a railroad tracks, that'd be the upper left corner of the picture.

And so we will have a new multi-use path on the south side of Trader Joe's, uh, new turnouts, a lot more pedestrian safety uh built in and to the infrastructure.

And so we'll be um taking a an open ditch and then putting in box culverts to reroute stormwater.

There's going to be a new railroad crossing, an actual official uh and permitted uh crossing for pedestrians to make it extremely the difference in safety is paramount at this railroad crossing.

It's going to be so much better for our bikes and pedestrians.

Uh so we have recently acquired all necessary permits to roll forward with the project.

We are able to begin construction in the middle of June, which we anticipate on uh getting that done as quickly as possible this summer.

So you will see a lot of work along all of Avenue this summer.

And then this is our newest minted capital project.

Uh the city has been very excited to be partnering with the Navado Historical Guild, uh, which successfully successfully fundraised $3.2 million, which uh they are eager to get the Scott House, which is I am looking at it right now.

It's on the north side of our city hall building across the lawn.

Uh and it is a project that merits a lot of attention, and we are very excited to get started on it.

Uh so we've received a donation of $3.2 million, and the city is dedicating project management and inspection services that we will be working with the guild to finalize design through the rest of spring into early summer, get through the permitting process and uh begin construction as soon as humanly possible, and hopefully the summer to fall this year.

Another project that is ongoing, and we're excited to see some recent movement.

The police station HVAC project is uh designed to replace the existing HVAC equipment, which was installed when the building was built in the 1970s.

So it's uh in uh maintenance terms, it's a Frankenstein system.

We have been replacing piece by piece, part by part as they fail.

And it's a great project to actually re have a chance to look at the entire system, redo it, make it more efficient, make it better that it will last for many years to come with very, very little downtime.

Um we have a design firm contracted.

They're gonna be looking at uh design recommendations.

So they'll be providing us with three design uh proposals.

These proposals will be reviewed by staff and by a third party uh to make sure that we're selecting the most optimal outcome and the most optimal product for the project.

Currently looking at uh also uh an ash ray level two energy audit.

So while we have engineers in the building, we'll be looking at windows, looking at heat traps or heat, you know, ways that he is escaping the building uh and just really trying to figure out how to make it more efficient for years to come.

And another task given to the consultant is to be uh coordinating with PG and E to see if there's on-bill finance uh opportunities.

Next slide.

Uh this is a repeat project from last year and the upcoming one this year.

So we have our annual pavement rehabilitation project, and this happens on every year, and we identify uh many roads across the city that need rehabilitation work.

So on the left you can see uh several dark-sheded black lines which represent different streets across the city that we uh did full depth reclamation on.

So it was Clay Court, Grant Avenue, Indian Valley Road, Redwood Boulevard, Sherman Avenue, and a little portion of I'm sorry, road little portion of Redwood, large portion of Roland.

And we're excited to announce that this coming year, this summer, we'll be working on redwood from Roland Boulevard all the way north to San Marin Drive.

And so this is a major arterial road for us.

It you know bisects our downtown.

We're excited to rehab it, do a lot of work to improve mobility.

The southern half of it from Roland to Diablo, we're excited to be installing class four bike lanes.

And so this will be a major safety improvement for our bicyclists across the city.

Another thing that we try to do, and we're getting better and better at with time, uh funding our projects with things other than sales taxes and general funds.

So grant funding projects and opportunities, uh, the Nevada Wolver Winding Project, we were able to acquire one point 10.3 million dollars of 10 major streets program.

This is something that has aged out, it's not available anymore, and this is one of the last projects that will be funded through the major streets program.

Uh, and then we have two safe pathways to school projects, the Sutra Avenue sidewalk gap closure, which is along Sutra Avenue on the east side of the road, so the uh uh northeast bound traffic, and it'll be uh part of a major citywide sidewalk gap closure initiatives.

Um, but also safe pathways to school, quick build improvements at various intersections.

Um, don't want to take everybody's nights tonight, but it's a series of pedestrian safety projects, pedestrian safety projects, excuse me, that are anything from striping to crosswalk improvements to shortening lane crossing distances.

So if we were to sh you know shorten the distance that people have to walk across unmarked pavements, it's a great way to prevent fatalities and accidents on the roads.

Uh we just covered the historic guild.

We received the it says 2.9 million on the slide, but my correction is 3.2 million from the guild for that project.

And then uh potential funding, we're working with the transportation authority of Marin to apply for an active transportation program uh grant opportunity uh for more sidewalk gap closures along Redwood Boulevard to the tune of approximately 1.5 million.

So now we're shifting to this year's new capital improvement projects.

And so we're going back to our three category models.

We're going to start with transportation, then we'll get into parks and into facilities.

So for the coming year, we intend on dedicating resources to the next annual pavement rehab project.

Um then also the Novato Boulevard widening project.

So as the Nevada Boulevard winding project continued, and as we approached construction, we dedicated $131.

This coming fiscal year to getting construction going on that Olive Avenue winding project, uh the required amount to finish out the project, $2.1 million.

San Marin corridor improvements.

Uh this was something I alluded to earlier of consolidating capital improvement projects.

We had around five, well, we had five different capital projects scheduled along San Marin Drive.

There was no necessary relation in planning between all the different projects, and really when you plan out transportation and when you plan out any changes to our infrastructure, you should be taking a holistic approach.

So what we're doing with a lot of upcoming activity along San Marin, everything from Marin Water, potentially doing a project to other developments uh that are intended to happen along San Marin from Firemen's Fund to other projects that are north in Woodwood Drive.

The there's going to be major changes along San Marin Drive.

So what we intend on doing is taking a holistic approach, uh doing a study of the entire corridor from Highway 101 to Nevada Boulevard, and that starts with doing proper analysis and studies.

So that's what that project is.

And then replacing wooden streetlight poles.

This is an ongoing project, but uh in the interest of continuing to create fire safety throughout our city and throughout the county, getting rid of old wooden poles is important and uh replacing them with newer, updated, safer street light poles is very important.

Storm drain pipe replacement, $50,000.

This is a project that will be managed out of our corporation yard.

Our folks who do work in our streets every day, and they see our stormwater infrastructure at as it is the most damaged.

They have eyes and ears out in the field that they can manage and identify projects that we can replace and should be replacing in expedite manager, excuse me, expedited manor.

Next is the traffic bike and pedestrian improvements.

This is an ongoing annual project that identifies everything from crosswalks to bike lanes to pedestrian safety initiatives that we can do across the city and very related, same with the last one.

Very related but very unique.

We have a new pedestrian safety project.

So this came from a council member this year.

We wanted to dedicate Measure M funds to something that is unique and important for pedestrian safety, something ideally near parks, uh ideally near schools, where we can improve how our pedestrians, our kids, our neighbors, our friends, ourselves, as we cross streets and navigate transportation uh alongside cars so that we can uh get to different places safer.

And we've identified several areas, so stay tuned as we uh reveal the locations in coming weeks.

So next category is parks, recreation and community service.

We have five new identified projects.

Um at the Hamilton community pool.

We have a play structure in the small, you know, youth, you know, young age pool that has gone beyond its anticipated useful life.

The best way to approach this, we've felt is to contract with the consultant to take uh stock, inspect, assess the entire pool structure.

Um there are pipe sizing questions, there's pump sizing questions, uh, there's questions essentially about how to properly redesign it and make sure that it remains ADA compliant.

And so we intend on having this study done throughout the active season this summer.

The next project is the Teen Teen Center Turf.

So this is at the DRC or gymnastics center.

Uh the turf is beyond its expect anticipated useful life.

Uh the impact uh surface is concrete.

There's no padding underneath the turf, and drainage is also limited, and it stays inundated with water a bit too long.

And so we want to uh procure a design consultant to inspect, provide design recommendations in order to treat this properly so we can have a lasting uh fix in future years.

Next on the list is the Marin Highlands Park, uh, which is in the picture.

Uh the playground equipment is beyond as anticipated useful life.

This is based on staff observation and maintenance records.

Uh and really it's an safety improvement recommendation coming from within the public works and the park staff.

Uh another inaccuracy with the picture.

It has been the sand that you see has been replaced by wood chips.

And so we'd either be doing something similar using wood chips or going to a port-in-placed rubberized surface.

Uh next is the Marion Park improvements.

So 200,000 will be dedicated to renovating playing fields, having full field rehabilitation.

We need to get mitigate go for damage, rebuild those uh fields.

And uh last on the list, Miwok fencing uh phase two.

So this is a safety feature that we intend to add to Miwok Park.

There's a creek with a steep bank.

We do not want uh anyone in the park that uh could potentially be near the the creek surface to fall in.

So this is just a continuing uh theme of making our parks safer.

And last is municipal buildings.

Uh so we have three new projects.

The Scott House renovations we uh recently talked about.

We'll cover that again.

But the DRC and gymnastics center, uh, we intend to replace the air handlers, which is a major inside component of the ACEC system.

Uh they're beyond their useful expected useful life.

We're experiencing increasing maintenance costs on them, and so $500,000 dedicated towards replacing that component of the system.

Uh, and lastly, rooftop solar module replacements is a uh professional service.

We intend on inspecting uh solar modules.

So these would be inverters across uh different rooftops that are in failure or approaching failure.

So we are going to hire a consultant to inspect and make replacement recommendations for us based on solar modules and their condition.

Thank you.

So next steps, April public meetings.

Of course, we're at the community budget workshop tonight.

Our finance advisory commission, uh their next meeting is April 2nd.

And at that meeting, we will go through a preview of the uh budget study sessions for operating and the capital improvement program.

And then uh the two city council study sessions, April 14th being the operating budget, and then April 28th being the capital improvement program.

We welcome you to participate in the budget process.

And with that, I will open it up for um any questions.

Thank you.

Uh Chris, you mentioned some of the projects at the parks.

Are those those dollars for the studies or for the studies and the improvements and upgrades and such?

Thank you.

So I have it's not one way or another.

So the um Hamilton Community Pool would be a study.

And the uh Can we see the slide while he answers that just so I can go?

Sorry.

Can it paint my picture?

There you go.

Uh the first two would be studies.

And uh the Marion Highlands Park, sorry, Marine Highlands Park, Marion Park, and Mewak Fencing, those are actual getting the projects done.

Okay.

Thank you.

Does the same kind of apply to any of the streets and maintenance projects, which I think was a slide or two before or that one?

I think those have a lot of actual action, right?

So looking at this list, every component, yes, every transportation project does include construction services.

Thank you.

Lots of questions.

So one thing that's been talked about for for years are city-owned buildings that the city doesn't use anymore.

They're just sitting there.

Um there's been talk about is the city going to sell them.

Would they would that happen?

And would that go into the budget as well?

Is there any tops about um one on the model boulevard in particular of thinking about this manipulate for many, many years and nothing's being done with it?

Is that thoughts of being dealt with or sold or yeah, it's a great question.

We do have a number of properties, vacant properties, properties with buildings.

I think you're referencing two properties that the council's already earmarked to surplus.

And so we're going through that process right now.

Those will be the first two up.

But we're gonna go through all of our properties and look at their highest and best use and how we can maximize efficiency and utilization of all of them.

Great.

Sorry, I just wanted to mention for those in the room.

Um, we have our entire leadership department head team here.

So if you have questions that are really specific, we're all here to um help answer those.

And just one final thing.

Um, we won't actually uh put revenue in the budget for the sale of a property until the property sells, and then we would amend the budget for that revenue.

Is that revenue restricted?

If you were to gain capital from the sale of surplus properties, that revenue then restricted.

No, that's a general fund fund, although it it likely would be in its own fund.

Uh we have a city property fund because it's one-time money, right?

Not ongoing revenue.

How is the um city assessed that there's been much to do about the safe safe program uh over the course last year?

How is the city um monitoring and uh reporting on the RLI of that program?

So I should introduce myself.

Bill Rose, Assistant City Manager, City Owned Properties is is one of the verticals that I work on.

Safe homelessness uh and all things related to that are the are some other things.

So I don't know if you had a chance to see it, but recently we did a presentation and update to the city council.

Safe actually came in uh and gave us some statistics and showed how they are offsetting a lot of the calls that our police would normally take.

It showed their geographic distribution.

They're throughout the city, they're not just in Hamilton or certain specific areas.

They also will offset calls with other public um service agencies like Novano Fire District as well.

So we do have data, we can share that with you separately if you'd like.

What was the date of that meeting?

So I can reference for the website.

If I get your contact information afterwards, I can get you everything.

That sounds great.

Thanks.

Yeah, one of the meetings in February, I believe, but we'll get you everything.

Do you have any forecasts of far for your revenues and your expenses?

Are you expecting increases or decreases, continued kind of decrease that you saw this year?

Yeah, the um general fund forecast uh actually incorporates the forecast of um revenues, so uh incrementally uh going slightly up, but like sales tax has been flat throughout the state of California, property tax is going up a little bit more.

Um it's not um going up in an aggressive manner, I would say.

But yeah, the forecast contains that.

And we will be looking at it again as we um you know go through all of the um you know budget um meetings.

Okay.

Obviously, California's a state is experiencing some potential funding challenges, and a lot of that we get a lot of our, because I understand it, we get a lot of our funding for schools from state and some in some cases I believe some federal um as well.

But I'm not don't quote me on that.

Um how is the city thinking about potential funding uh declines from other third-party sources, especially with the emphasis on schools?

School funding isn't our funding, so um we can't answer that because it's its own um agency, the school district.

Um with regard to um federal and state funding, that a lot of that is through grants, and so we've been a bit more um conservative and forecasting um what grants that we would be able to get.

And um the federal at the federal level, that's kind of up in the air.

They come with a lot of um requirements, and sometimes those requirements aren't something that the city is going to um want to adhere to um requirements outside of the scope of financial requirements, even um and yeah, like I said, just a bit more conservative in the grant forecasting.

Thank you.

We do have a representative from the school district here.

If you would want if you want additional information, um you can certainly speak with Mr.

Nell and he can get you in touch with the right people at the school district for those specific questions.

It doesn't look like we have any other questions.

We really want to thank everybody for being here today.

Um we did outline some of the other places where you can have um more informal conversations with us, or if you want to um come to some of the city council meetings, you are welcome to come there and provide public comment as well.

But we thank you all for coming.

We appreciate your time.

Uh sometimes we realize that this information can be a little bit dry, but the fundamentals uh is are basically pieces of information we need to get out there so that everybody understands kind of the confines that we're working within and understands where city staff is going to recommend to the council.

We are seeing our um outstanding needs and priorities at this point.

So thank you very much.

And I would add that this recording will be posted on the city's website along with the presentation in the next few days.

Thank you.