Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. What time is it? Let's see 530. Cool. Welcome to the

Measure U Community Advisory Committee. This meeting is now called order. Will the clerk please call the roll to establish a quorum?

Thank you, Chair. Members, please unmute your microphones. Member McGee is absent. Member Smith?

Here. Member Sala? Here. Member Cook? Here. Vice Chair Wolfe is currently absent.

Member Johnston? Here. Member Goris? Here. Member Novello? Here. Member Garofsky? Here.

Member Paschal? Here. Member Frye-Lucas? Here. Member Rosa? Here. And Chair Georgiouf? Here.

Thank you. We have quorum. I would like to remind members of the public and the chambers that if

you would like to speak on an agenda item, please turn in a speaker slip when the item begins.

You will have two minutes to speak and once you are called on after the first speaker,

we will no longer accept speaker slips. We will now proceed with today's agenda. Okay. So first

order, I just want to welcome two new members. John, welcome. And also over there, Juan? Nice to see you

here. I think we saw you last time. Kind of introduce yourself. But good to have you guys. I think you'll

find out how this ship runs pretty quickly. It's pretty simple. But we're here to help if you need

anything. Great. I want to start with the land acknowledgement and Pledge of Allegiance. And

as is tradition, we're kind of swapping around who runs it. So Marbella, would you be willing

to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and the... No? You don't want to? No. No person. Okay.

Fine. I'll do it. It's fine. All right. Okay. Go ahead.

Please rise for the opening acknowledgement in honor of the Sacramento Indigenous people and tribal

lands. To the original people of this land, the Nisan people, the Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains Miwa.

Patwin, Wintu peoples, and the people of the Wilton Drancheria, Sacramento's only federally

recognized tribe. May we acknowledge and honor the Native people who came before us and still walk

beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together today in the active practice of

acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's Indigenous peoples' history, contributions, and lives.

Thank you.

I'll be Pledge of Allegiance. We can put that up. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay.

Our first business today is the approval of the consent calendar. Are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this?

Thank you, Chair. I have no speaker slips for the consent calendar.

Any members or commissioners? No? Okay, then let's do a motion. I think we can just do it by voice. So all in favor of-

Make a motion first.

I'm sorry, you're right. Make a motion to approve-

I'll move the motion, Mr. Chair.

Yep. And do we have a second?

Okay, great. We have a motion and a second. Can we call- Oh, I guess we'll just do it by voice. So all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed or abstain? Okay.

Excellent. First item on the discussion calendar is the overview of the fiscal year 25-26 measure you proposed budget.

I think we have some staff presentation. Welcome, Pete. Good to see you again.

Thank you, Chair.

Good evening, Chair, Committee members, members of the public. I'm Pete Coletto, the finance director.

Joining me is Myrthala Centiso, our budget manager. And while we get the presentation up, I know there are a lot of familiar faces up on the dais. And, you know, as you remember last year, we

started to really publicize that, hey, we're in a structural budget deficit. You know, we're in this fundamental budget imbalance. And that's really what we've been- what we began to address during this year's budget and which we're continuing to try to address with the fiscal year 25-26 proposed budget, which we're going to review with you today.

So this is just a little bit of what we're going to go over. So I'll start with the budget schedule.

So by charter, we have to release the budget by the end of- the proposed budget by the end of April. So we released it on April 30th.

We held our first budget hearing with Council this past Tuesday. And, you know, this came after every department presented to Council letting them know, here are our- you know, here's what we're doing now. Here's our level of service.

And I know a number of Measure U funded departments came to you to give that same presentation. And so the budget hearing is really focused on what are the strategies that we're going to use to balance our budget, which we have to do both by charter mandate and by the fact that we can't print money. So we can't run deficits like the federal government.

So we're going to have another budget hearing tomorrow evening. We have some other budget issues in the afternoon. So the capital improvement program and the budget equity tool.

We're really hoping to get some direction from Council tomorrow evening on what are some of the things that they may want to restore or change or whatnot.

May 27th, we have this new state mandate where we have to have a public hearing on our vacancies. It's information that we as a city have provided just all the time. But the state is now mandating all cities have it and that you also do it during a public hearing and allow labor to participate.

And then we're hoping to take back any feedback we get from Council tomorrow to budget and audit on June 3rd and just kind of say, hey, did we get this right? And then come back for adoption on the 10th.

So, you know, I wanted to really give a little bit of context. So we're looking at our budget challenges over the short, medium and long term. And, you know, our immediate problem was we had a $62.2 million funding gap that we needed to close to balance fiscal year 26.

But in the near term, we really need to correct the structural imbalance and we're taking some steps in the proposed budget to do so. But we also have kind of some more nerve-racking

things going on right now. So I know you've all heard about the threats to federal funding to, you know, community organizations, but also to the city. And they're very real. And we're monitoring that. You know, we're also working with the city attorney's office to try to protect our funding where we can.

And there's just a higher degree of economic uncertainty right now. So, you know, you've seen the gyrations in the market. There have been a lot of economists and business leaders warning about a recession.

And so we just feel a little bit more uncomfortable about the economy than we did this time last year. And then we have these long term liabilities. So we have a significant unfunded pension liability and then significant unfunded deferred maintenance and capital needs.

So I do want to start with a little bit of somewhat good news. So the proposed budget's balanced and we're continuing to make progress in solving the structural deficit. And so I know this is chart is a lot of numbers, but those kind of big boxes with the big numbers, that was what our forecast was this past February. So a $62.2 million gap for this year and almost $100 million budget gap for fiscal year 27.

With the strategies in the proposed budget, we close that fiscal year 26 gap and lower the fiscal year 27 gap to around $60 million. And that does not include potential half funding from the state, which we'll talk about later.

We're also proposing to put $4.2 million, which normally would go into our economic uncertainty reserve, into a new reserve to protect against federal funding losses. So even if we end up getting our funding back, if there's litigation or things like that, we need some money there to continue programs that are really critical, that are funded by federal funding.

And I'm going to pass it off to Mr. Fahala, who is going to tell you everything that's in the budget.

Mr. Thanks, Pete. Okay, so this is the fiscal year 26 proposed budget for, for every, for all funds. We have a total of $1.6 billion and approximately $847 of that is the general fund, which includes measure U. Whoops. Sorry.

The budget is slightly higher than fiscal year 25 by approximately $69 million and the total FTE is slightly under $5,000. There's a net decrease of 44.6 million.

FTEs between fiscal year 26 and 25 and as Pete said, this proposed budget is balanced and closes the budget of $1.6 billion.

The budget is slightly higher than fiscal year 25 by approximately $69 million and the total FTE is slightly under $5,000. There's a net decrease of 44.9 FTEs between fiscal year 26 and 25.

And as Pete said, this proposed budget is balanced and closes the 62.2 funding gap.

Okay, this next slide shows the program area budgets by all funds and, and also the general fund. So for all funds, the largest program areas are public safety and municipal services at approximately 30% each.

30% each. Public safety accounts for approximately 59% of the general fund budget with the overall citywide budget accounting for 12% of the budget.

And by spending category salaries and benefits is by far the largest at 72% with service and supplies coming in second at 21%.

Okay. And for revenues, with both property tax and sales tax is the largest general fund revenue sources with both close to 30% each. Fees and charges is second accounting for 30, 13% of the general fund revenues.

Okay. So we'll go into the overview for measure use budget.

Okay. So this chart, this chart shows where the proposed measure you budget landed after fiscal year 26 reductions were made.

So from the amended budget to propose, we see a slight increase in revenues by $0.6 million. And then there is a reduction of 8.9 million in expenditures and reductions of 87.3 FTEs.

So comparing the revenues and expense gap from fiscal year to fiscal year, the gap is getting smaller, but expenses still exceed revenues.

Moving into our discussion of the budget gap since fiscal year 25, the city continues to have what is called a structural budget deficit.

This means that our expenses are growing faster than revenues and the deficit is not due to a downturn in the economy.

There was not one decision that pushed the city into a structural deficit.

There were many such as the expanding into new services, new labor contract costs, increased staffing and ballot measures setting aside general funds.

Inflation also had an impact. So to fix this structural budget deficit, there will need to be an increase in revenues, either through new or expanded fees, or, and or a decrease in expenses.

Okay. The process for fiscal year 26 was similar to fiscal year 25 process. Departments were instructed to submit reduction strategies totaling 15% of their general fund budget, which includes measure U, with the focus being to minimize service impacts as much as possible and preserving core services.

Reduction strategies could be revenue increases and or expenditure reductions.

So in total there are $137.8 million in department and citywide reduction strategies, which included a reduction of 486.3 FTEs.

Of the 486 approximate FTEs, 250 of those are filled.

These strategies are detailed in the budget book and also in the staff report attachments.

But I do want to note that council already took early action this fiscal year and approved using fiscal year 24 year end savings of $23.5 million to help close the budget gap, which you see in that $44.3 million under citywide.

So for proposed budget balancing, there were, for both general fund and measure you combine, the deficit was $62.2 million.

And of course we took those few early budget actions that I just mentioned.

One of them was the, that we received some information from the state regarding our homeless funding and it came in lower by $5.4 million.

And with the $23.5 use of the prior year savings that brought our deficit down to $44.1 million.

We had $20.3 million in revenue enhancements and approximately $15.3 in level one and level two reductions.

There were also $7.4 million in citywide reductions, which included quite a bit of project closeouts and other changes to projects.

We did have a small amount of $1.2 million in department augmentations.

And this was really to, due to cost increases in IT maintenance and other areas where we were seeing inflation.

We did achieve some savings through cost plan offsets and salary savings adjustments.

We re, we redid how we calculated the cost plan with a, with a new consultant.

And that brought in quite a bit of savings.

And we also launched a new way to conduct offsets in the system.

So when a department has a position that is funded by a project or a grant, those positions get offset with those funding.

And so we did some work in the system to make that a little bit easier to work on.

And then finally we had a slight increase in retirement, insurance and other budget adjustments that you can see there.

Okay.

So in general we had essentially a 50-50 split in regards to the one time and ongoing reduction strategies.

So approximately 34.6 million are ongoing cuts.

And this is what you'll see as addition, as the cuts moves forward in the forecast that Pete showed.

We do also have 35.2 million in one time reductions.

And with these reductions, they will only take place in fiscal year 26 and won't continue on.

Okay.

So for measure you reductions, this is, we put it in the program areas that you're used to seeing.

The biggest chunk of it comes out of youth, that 3.37 million, with public safety coming shortly after that at 2.1 million.

We do have some miscellaneous, and that includes any sort of changes to insurance or some more post-benefit retirements.

And then we also have a community investment coming in at 1.27.

And all of this is detailed in the attachments that are in the packet.

And I'll have, like, the exact breakdown of what contributed to each of these totals.

And then this chart right here, I do want to apologize.

I just realized, like, 15 minutes before we came

that the decimal is off.

So these are supposed to be in millions.

But just by looking at the chart itself, these are some of the, like, bigger items that were reduced from the measure you budget.

The biggest one being the police department's pipeline reduction.

That was about 23 FTEs of community services officers.

We also had a number of vacancy deletions at 2.2 million.

And also some cost shifts to other funding sources, which means that the program will still continue on,

but it's just being funded by a different fund.

We also had a reduction of the 1,000 Strong project, which is at 1.5 million.

And as you can see, there are numerous other reductions in there as well.

So just wanted to kind of give you a smaller breakdown beyond the program groups to see, like, the individual areas.

And then for augmentations, we have some changes here,

mostly under inclusive economic development and community investments.

And again, these are just slight increases due to some of the changes that we saw with just inflation and cost to IT that would essentially need to be paid for in the next fiscal year.

Okay. And with that, I'll give it back to Pete.

Thank you.

So, as always, we update our five-year forecast with the assumptions in the proposed budget.

But a few things I just want to call out.

So we don't know.

We're not psychics.

We don't know when there's going to be a recession.

If we did, we'd be really rich.

We probably wouldn't be public servants.

But so we're assuming in our forecast that we have continued economic growth.

We know that there's increased uncertainty, but we just don't know when a recession might occur.

We also did not include the loss of federal funding.

That's being litigated and fought right now, and we don't know, you know, quite where that's going to land.

But we'll update as we get more information.

As I mentioned before, we didn't include an assumption for state homelessness funding for fiscal year 27.

So the governor in his January budget, again this year, did not include another round of HAP funding.

In his May revision, he actually said, hey, we went from a balanced budget to being $12 billion in deficit.

And so he didn't include it in there either.

However, you know, the cities and the legislature like the HAP program, and so we're hoping that they'll be able to negotiate funding for cities.

This really funds our shelters, so it's really critical funding for us.

So we are hopeful, but we don't know how much we might get.

As you all may have heard, we had a 40% reduction in our HAP funding for this past round of HAP.

And, you know, unfortunately from our perspective, the formula is based on point-in-time count.

So to the extent that Sacramento had more success in getting people off the streets than other jurisdictions, we saw a proportional hit to our funding.

But that is something to talk about for future rounds of HAP to make sure the incentives align.

And then the last thing is we are either in or going to very soon be in negotiations with most of our labor groups.

And we don't know what those contracts will look like, so we don't model out labor, new labor agreements.

However, each 1% in salary increases $4.8 million of general fund costs.

So with all of those caveats, this is what our forecast looks like over the next five years.

You know, again, balance this year or this coming year, and then roughly a $60 million deficit.

If we get a similar amount of HAP funding that we did in this prior round, that goes down, you know, by around $13 million or so.

So as I mentioned before, we also have some long-term challenges.

So we have significant unfunded liabilities.

Our latest actuarial report showed that we have a $1.5 billion unfunded pension liability.

This is up from $1.4 billion last year.

We also have a $200 million OPEB liability.

This is unfunded OPEB liability.

This is really retiree health care benefits.

And our newest capital plan identified $1.8 billion in unfunded capital and deferred maintenance needs.

And, you know, these include things like parks that are badly in need of maintenance and upgrades.

So one piece of good news is earlier this year, Council did take some steps to address these long-term problems.

So they adopted a prior year savings policy that, you know, balances our budget needs with investing in these long-term liabilities.

We're in a structural deficit right now, so those prior year savings go towards addressing that.

But as the city gets back into fiscal balance, that will provide a future source of funds when we have these kind of one-time windfalls to start paying down these debts and making our facilities better for our residents.

And as far as the pending factors and kind of the things we're really worried about, again, it's that economic uncertainty that's top of mind along with the threats to federal funding.

We don't know what's going to happen with the HAP program, even if we do manage to get another round.

My kind of gut feeling is that homelessness funding to local jurisdictions is going to look a lot different and is going to have a lot more strings attached.

And we're also worried about the economic impact on federal funding cuts to, you know, our community organizations and our broader economy.

And then, you know, we have now, we're on year number three if we move our EUR contribution into a federal funding reserve,

of not making our contribution to the economic uncertainty reserve.

So we're below Council's minimum, and that gives us less breathing room when there is an economic downturn.

But with, on that happy note, that concludes our presentation, and we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to first open it up to committee members.

Oh, do we have members of the public?

We do.

We have one speaker.

Okay, let's go ahead and let's start with those then.

All right.

Thank you, Chair.

I have one speaker for this item, Mr. Lambert Davis.

These two right here, I'm very impressed with them because they've given me a graph and statistics to go by.

They're very thorough.

They're very thorough.

I've been studying them for a while.

Now, as a person who owns a business, when I hear structural deficit, even in college, I've never heard that phrase.

I've heard deficit.

I've heard structural, but not combined.

That, to me, also could mean mismanagement.

Now, what do I mean by that?

Some of the ideas I've taken to the city council, you should take to the city council.

First of all, Measure U has been co-opted.

I just think if Mayor Steinberg had not put together Measure U for the general fund, this city would be in tremendous red.

I'm just going by strictly numbers.

The other thing is, some of the suggestions that I didn't hear in this presentation is I don't think employees who are working remotely should get a raise.

If you do an audit, and we're going to have an audit done, we would like to know how much money could be saved if you don't give someone working remotely a raise.

Why would they need a raise?

They're not leaving home.

Also, the mayor and city council and all of the charter members, they should not get a raise.

Freeze it.

They're not getting laid off.

They're not furloughed.

I'll guarantee you that'll save millions of dollars, and they're not laid off.

If you look at the state, the state was brought up.

Look how the workers are complaining about having to come back to work, and they're not being laid off.

They just have to come back to work for four days.

That means every week they have a three-day weekend.

Who wouldn't want a job like that?

Thank you for your comments, Chair.

I have no more speakers on this item.

Speak on this item?

If not, I'm going to jump in.

All right.

Member Johnson, go ahead.

I feel like I often start this.

I'm trying to understand.

I might be missing something fundamental, but I'm trying to do math.

I think I'm relatively decent at math, but the numbers aren't lining up for me.

The measure you fund for 24-25 was $140 million.

I'm trying to find the numbers.

I know it's not in this report, but I was just trying to look at it.

And compare it to the fund this year is projected to be $135 million, right?

Yeah, for the revenues.

For the revenues.

Yeah.

So in fiscal year 24-25, that mid-year, the projection was $134.4 million in measure you tax receipts.

And for, in the proposed budget, we're forecasting $135 million.

Okay.

So the actual revenue coming in hasn't changed significantly.

Because the structural deficit isn't an issue of economic factors that would lower the sales tax, right?

These are things that are safe.

So what I would say is that it's a consequence of the expenses rising faster than the revenues.

So, you know, one trend that we've seen, and it's not just Sacramento, but it's statewide over the last couple of years,

is we've really seen this flattening of sales tax revenues.

So whereas, you know, prior you would assume, hey, we're going to get a certain percentage of growth.

It's really, you know, we saw a couple of years of actual declines, small, very small declines, but really just a flattening out.

And so after COVID, when you had that inflationary kind of spike, you saw it was like a, I'd call it like a sugar high for sales tax revenues.

So you saw a couple of years of really robust sales tax revenue growth, and now it's kind of flattened out.

Yeah. But in terms of, because again, I still consider myself a relatively new commissioner here.

I'm still trying to figure out and do the best I can.

But if the measure you fund, which is built towards supporting, I know it goes into the general fund,

but it's technically built towards supporting these community efforts and all this other stuff that we're supposed to be here doing.

Why is it going, if it's been placed basically flat, can you help me get the step to where $11.5 million gets taken out of the budget?

And then the $11 million gets taken out of the programs that measure you funded.

I know I'm missing something fundamental. Can you just explain what the difference is?

No, you know, I mean, I think part of it is that the general fund, so measure you expenses are greater than measure you revenues.

And so the general fund, you could say the general fund is subsidizing the measure you fund if you wanted to put it that way.

But yeah, measure you expenditures are higher than the revenues.

And you're saying general fund, non measure you general fund is supporting measure you services or programs that aren't bringing enough revenue to cover the expenses?

Correct. Yeah.

Okay. And that's where that $11.5 million deficit largely comes from?

That's right. Yeah.

So if you look at the slide, slide number 12, where it shows, you know, the fiscal year 24-25 amended budget and the 25-26 proposed budget.

The top line there is the measure you revenues, the measure you tax receipts.

And then the next is the measure you expenditures.

I can go back there.

Yeah, I'm looking at it.

That shows you the, oops.

That was it.

Sorry.

So that kind of shows you the state of it.

And I know it's the, you know, the commission is looking specifically at measure you programming.

But when we're looking at it on a citywide basis, we're not saying, oh, the measure you fund should get this many, you know, this reduction target and the general fund that reduction target.

What we're saying is, hey, here are the services we're providing.

Here's what the impact of those reductions would mean.

And like Murthala was saying, if you look at the budget document or if you go on our website, it's actually easier to see it there.

We have a list of all the strategies that are all the budget balancing strategies that we're using to balance and all the ones that we didn't use.

And you can kind of see the impact of those choices.

And they're all bad choices.

But that's, when the city's approaching it, it's not looking at a specific like measure you versus general fund.

It's more service.

What's this going to do to the community?

Yeah.

And I get that.

And I think that answers the question is, it's kind of an arbitrary line, right?

Because it's the general fund is a general fund.

But it's also kind of hard because our purview is to make sure the measure you funds are spent.

And we're trying not to do mission creep and go to the general fund.

But it's hard to not do that back and forth, right?

And when you say there's bad decisions around, well, it's our commission's job to make sure the bad decisions don't largely lie just on the measure you fund program.

So I just want to make sure I understand.

And I think you helped me really kind of formulate that.

So I might have some more questions if there's any other, but thank you for your time.

I just wanted to note too that the specific measure you reduction strategies and the modifications are attachment three and four in the report.

And then also in regards to what Pete was mentioning, where you can see all of them in our budget book, we actually have it listed out in our budget modification section where it actually lists the fund.

Because I believe that our attachments because of the way that council looks at it as all general fund, we don't list it out by fund.

So if you look in the actual book in the budget modification sections, you'll see the different funds in measure you in there.

And then you'll also see in the section where it's like the strategies that we didn't choose.

It also has those listed as well.

So just so that you can get, if you want to get some more information about very specific strategies, you'll see them there and list it out.

Great.

I won't take any more time, but I have just a quick technical question.

Vacancy deletions, is that when they're planning on filling the role and they decide not to and that saves future funding from the budget?

Yeah, it could be. It could be that it was something they were planning to fill.

It could be something that they had in their budget and they're looking at their operations and saying, you know, I don't necessarily need this position anymore.

But it's just a position where there's not a person currently employed.

Got it. Thank you.

Okay, member cook.

Thanks.

So I appreciate this.

So I see that the present, the proposed budget like is balanced.

It says a $1 million projected surplus.

However, like I'm trying to reconcile this number against what's in the proposed summary, proposed MU summary forecast item three.

And it says that the measure you projects a $46.9 million deficit for 2526.

So can you help me understand like how do these two pieces of information reconcile when there's, I guess the work we're showcasing a budget surplus of 1 million.

But when looking at item three proposed and you summary forecast, like the way the math plays out, it actually shows.

So the 1 million that you're referring to is all a general fund.

So it's we're showing.

So for all of general fund, we have a surplus of approximately $1 million.

The 46 million that you're looking at, that's probably an attachment to is just for measure you alone.

So essentially what we're saying here is that this is essentially where we're like just taking all the expenses and the, and the revenue.

This is where measure you lands at the very bottom.

And that's because it's incorporating the homelessness.

It is.

It's incorporating the homelessness, which is the biggest impact.

I could that.

Thanks for clarifying.

That makes a lot of sense.

Cause I think to your point, I look at the 135 million and I just run the math, you know, does it equal zero?

Is it greater than zero?

So on and so forth.

So when I look at like, um, the projected revenue of 2526, it says 135 million, but then like, I just look at this table and it says the beginning balance, beginning available fund balances, negative 21 million.

Should that be interpreted as like the measure you fund already has a $21 million deficit for the fiscal year?

Well, I don't, I would say, I don't know that I would think of it necessarily that way.

Um, and it's, I'll say it's always hard for, I get, I understand your position too, cause it's like, you're looking at one part of the budget and then from us, we're kind of looking at it holistically.

Right. And there's not that, um, you know, they're, they can both be, be used for these expenses.

Uh, but that's really just the general fund subsidy, right?

Yeah. So, so what, so what they're saying here is that this is it, but like when you combine it all, that's when the general fund does.

Yeah. So the general fund will, you know, come in and essentially pay that off.

So it's not that you're already in deficit.

Yeah. It's just as, just because we had to break up the measure you forecast, that's the way that it breaks up.

If we were to just look strictly at the measure you funds, but when it comes down to looking at, you know, what it is for this fiscal year, it's what's showing up in the chart there.

So, um, essentially the, for this fiscal year, the general fund is covering the 9.6 because that's how much rep expenses are over revenue.

Yeah. But, um, but yeah, when you're looking at the forecast, because we have to essentially treat it like we would with the regular general fund forecast,

we are just splitting up the measure you part. So it just looks like it's in much more deficit, but it's because the general fund has augmented it to cover all of the expenses.

General fund augments it to cover all of the expenses. So like that, that $21 million beginning available fund balance, that's being covered by the general fund.

Correct. Yeah. And it's similar. If you look at our general fund forecast, you'll see that we break, or not general fund for total forecast for the general fund,

general fund, general measure you fund. We'll break it up between kind of what our, um, traditional operations, I'll call them are, and our homelessness services.

And you'll see our traditional operations have a, uh, surplus and then our homelessness, um, has a deficit, but net, it nets to being a million dollar balanced. Um, yeah.

Cool. Thanks. Okay. I'm gonna actually jump in right before you, if that's cool. Um, I just have a couple of things that I'm going to do.

Um, I just have a couple of questions as well. Um, one thing I want to understand is, you know, when we look at the trajectory in the next four years, um, we're balanced this year, but then the next step was $60 million deficit.

Uh, and then the year after that was 69. Uh, I'm curious as to the step function here, cause it goes up 60 million and then up nine and then up like around 10. So why next year another?

Yeah. So the, the, the one time solutions we use to balance fiscal year 26, they start our deficit for fiscal year 27. So that's why you, that's a, that's a big part of that big jump from being a million dollar, a million dollars, um, positive to $60 million negative. We had, you know, almost 40 million ish of, uh, one time solutions.

Then also add in, uh, HAP funding, state homelessness funding that's included for fiscal year 26. We don't have an assumption in there for fiscal year 27.

You know, if the, um, if the governor and legislature are able to work something out, then we, we would, you know, see if we want to model out, but typically we wait until we get an indication from them of what our allocation might be. But from, uh, 26 to 27, those are the two big things. Um, and then as you go on, it's just all of our costs, um, are compounding just at a higher rate than our revenue growth.

So if you had to guess, I, or when you were modeling this out, um, irregardless of federal funding changes or state funding changes, what is the increase in expenditure that we as a city, uh, incur year over year, right? Uh, irregardless of maybe even inflation, but you know, from a step function, how, how much more do we spend year on year? Uh, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think there's a, a few drivers. Uh, most of our, most of our budget is salary and benefits. Um, it just is.

And so it's a lot of things related to that. Um, so increased PERS costs, uh, increased workers comp and, uh, insurance costs. Um, those are some of the, the drivers on kind of a year to year basis. Um, just if you look at it over the last 10 years, like you go backwards, I would say, okay, well, we've moved into a lot of new service areas. Um, you know, particularly homelessness, uh, where, you know, in the fiscal year 26 budget, it's roughly 35 million of general fund.

Um, with the balance, uh, being mostly HAP funding are, you know, almost $50 million homeless services budget. And that's a budget that didn't exist, you know, 10 years ago. So that's kind of a big driver. But yeah, it's, it's a lot of its PERS, uh, salaries, stuff like that.

Yeah. I guess what I'm trying to get at is if we didn't change our programs at all and the funding that we had was kind of constant, how much would our expenditures go up year over year? Because of increases in salary.

It depends. It depends on what's negotiated and labor negotiations. It depends on, um, how PERS does, um, in regards to investments. It, you know, we do have forecasts that we've incorporate, like we do get information from, um, our consultants. We get information from PERS, um, whatever known information we put into our forecast. Um, and then, um,

and then we kind of put, you know, and we, um, continue it on to the rest of the five years. So it varies based off of like what information we receive. And of course, depending on what happens with labor negotiations this next year, that could dramatically change what the forecast looks like. But we can't tell you what that would look like until that, you know, labor negotiations passes.

Totally. What was used in the estimate though, in terms of year over year increase.

If you wanted a big giant ballpark with, which take with a huge grain of salt, you know, I would say it's going to be 10 to 15 on the current trajectory that we're on. Um, but you know, we may, maybe the economy turns around, right. And then that, that stops, but, uh, or that gets a lot better.

Yeah. I think you guys had to use some number when you were creating those sort of forecasts, right.

We have a lot of, uh, so what ends up happening is we have a lot of different, uh, drivers, right. And so, you know, like Murthal was saying, we'll get our actuarial report from CalPERS and, um, the way that they amortize, uh, you know, your unfunded liability.

And also when they don't hit their earnings estimates, how that kind of falls into our budget will differ year to year, but they'll give us a forecast every year that goes out, you know, 20 years. And so we'll incorporate that.

We'll talk to our insurance, um, folks incorporate those things. And those tend to be the big ones. But if you're, if you want something like, you know, what would a rule of thumb be given our, our kind of estimates now, that's what I, where I would.

Yeah. I appreciate the number. I know it's hard to come up with numbers and obviously everything's with a grain of salt, but it does help us get like a clear picture of, okay, like what are expenditures going to be year over year?

And like, what is the revenues we'd have to make up for that or what programs will we have to cut because we can't have revenues that make up for that 10 to $15 million a year increase. Right.

So that, that's definitely something that should be thought about when we're trying to create a balanced budget. Um, I do have more questions, but I do want to get some other members in here. Uh, member Johnson, I think. Yeah. Go ahead.

Hello again. I realized that I didn't ask kind of the main question that I wanted to ask, but I think it should be relatively straightforward is how are the decisions made on which departments to cut and how much? And I think I found it on slide 15, which is, um, the department's instructed to submit reduction plans for 15% net general fund.

So defining core services, prioritizing ongoing savings to address structural deficit and prioritize reduction strategies to minimize service impacts. This is, I know there's a lot of people involved in the budget and I'm sure you ask people, they might see different ways, different things that, and how they approach it. But would you say this is the umbrella process for how you guys approach this budget?

Yeah, for sure. And so what we were, uh, what we're looking for, um, we didn't want to do like straight across the board cuts. Um, that's what some people do. And we're like, well, you know, we don't want to do everything we do.

We want to do as a city 8% worse. We want to try to define what our core services are. And we also wanted to have a lot more options than we needed to address our deficits. So we had a $62.2 million deficit and we had a menu of almost $140 million of reduction strategies.

So we went to every department and said, you know, if you had to, if I gave you a 15% reduction target, what things would you stop doing? Or what new revenues could you bring in? And give me a list of them. And, uh, you'll see that list in the budget book. There's a ton of different individual strategies. Um, then we meet with, uh, the executive team, uh, uh, of the city. We meet with each of the departments.

And we came up with this framework last year, um, the levels one through four, not as a blind, we're going to just do level one or whatever, uh, but just really to give some sort of framework to make decisions when you have 200 reduction options in front of you, right? Some groupings to go through. Um, and then we looked at it service by service. Um, so strategy by strategy, which strategies are going to have the least impact on the community and pick from the best of the bad.

And people may have different opinions on that, but I, and I, you know, fully recognize that that's actually one of the reasons we published everything. So not just what we chose, but what we didn't, because some people may not like what, um, what was chosen for the proposed budget. So they have a menu of other things they can choose from. Um, and that's, uh, you know, that's a level of transparency that isn't really that common in city budgeting. You typically just see what staff is proposing. You don't, you don't see,

Hey, what, what did they, you consider, but not include, but we thought it was really important to do that so that council and the public and everyone knows here, here are the choices before us.

You can probably see why we chose a lot of the things we did because a lot of the other things that are on there are unpalatable, but reasonable people can disagree on that. And, um, that's the debate council gets to have.

Yeah. Yeah. And so it sounds like the definition of core services and then the level of impact is that left to the departments that do kind of the first level pass and then it's a collective decision from there. They're the ones that know the departments and they can kind of better define what our core.

Yeah, correct. So they'll, um, they'll provide that information, but then after we meet with them, um, you know, that, that may change, right? When they meet with the executive team or when we're asking them some questions about, you know, maybe they have a really severe reduction in there.

And when we're having the discussion of, well, do you really need, could you do maybe a less severe one, um, and partially implement it? Um, and it will have less savings, but it would be less of an impact. And maybe it's not as, maybe it would be better than some of the other things that you put on the list. Um, so it's a, it's a, um, kind of iterative process. It's collaborative, uh, departments, you know, obviously they come up with the strategies or the subject matter experts.

They provide a lot of insight into, you know, how bad would the impact be.

Got it. And thank, I, I, I'm sure this is a very busy time for y'all. And I know it's a, it's a difficult job. So I appreciate you guys coming here and giving us this and I will promise to stop asking questions.

Um, okay. Member Sala.

Or just Member Smith. Okay. You guys are sharing a mic. Yep.

Um, yeah.

So I'd like to return briefly to the discussion that we had regarding unbounded pension obligations.

Um, so if I understood what you were saying correctly earlier, basically,

unbounded pension obligations happen for two reasons.

Either, uh, to use an analogy, it's, it's structural or it's cyclical, right?

I mean, either it's the case that your, uh, investment assumptions, uh, were wrong,

or past investment assumptions have been wrong going forward.

You didn't make as much money as you thought you're going to,

or, uh, because possibly the city did not put enough money in to cover, uh, future pension obligations.

Am I understanding that?

Um, so I think the, um, that's, you know, broadly true.

So your, your investment assumptions are, are the big ones.

So when CalPERS lowered their, um, discount, it's called the discount rate,

but that's what they're assuming they're going to return on their investments, um, every year.

They lowered it from, you know, 7.75% to 6.8%.

And that doesn't sound like that much, but on these huge pools of money,

that creates a very big unfunded liability.

And, um, you know, as you were saying, if CalPERS doesn't hit their 6.8%, uh, investment target,

then we, as a participating employer, uh, have an unfunded liability that we then need to pay.

Uh, there are other cause, things that could cause, um, unfunded liabilities

because, um, you know, there are a number of actuarial assumptions.

So if we give raises higher than CalPERS is assuming we're going to give raises,

that would create an unfunded liability.

Um, if our retiree, this is a good one, but if our retirees live longer, um, that,

then actuarial assumptions, that would create, uh, an unfunded liability.

A lot of jurisdictions who do not make their annual mandated payments, uh, they will,

they'll just see their liabilities increase and increase.

And, you know, there are cities like Chicago, um, who have not been good at,

making those payments and, uh, their, their pensions are severely underfunded.

Uh, we do make our, our, um, mandated payment every year.

We also, uh, pay off a portion of our unfunded liability every year.

But even with us doing all of those things, our unfunded liability is still 1.5 billion.

And, um, you know, one of the things that, uh, there are some tools also or options that CalPERS offers

where you can put monies into a trust when you have one-time savings that can accrue interest

or accrue returns greater than the treasury pool.

And so those are all things that we're looking into.

Um, but yeah, the big one is, is the investment assumptions.

That's, that's a huge one and that's really been a big driver.

Sure. Okay. So your investment assumptions could be wrong positively or they could be run, wrong negatively though, correct?

So the 1.5 billion is a soft number.

It, it, going forward, next year it could be, you could be right on target, correct?

Uh, so the 1.5, the way, the, the way that the 1.5 billion, um, comes about is every single year, uh, CalPERS has to do an actuarial,

they do an actuarial study of our plan and they say, hey, okay, based on how long everyone's living and how many years they stay in the job

and all these different things, um, here is what your liabilities are projected to be.

And you also have assets, right?

Because you've, you've paid them money and they've invested in assets, um, and, you know, here's what that is.

You take A minus B, that's your, uh, unfunded liability.

Right. Um, so to the extent that, let's say CalPERS beats their target,

that'll get phased in over a few years, um, and it would help lower it.

But, uh, we're so far from being fully funded, um, it would take many years of CalPERS,

if we didn't make the unfunded payments or all those other things,

it would take many, many years of them having, uh, really, really good investment returns above the, the assumption, um, to bring that down.

Okay, and final question, because I know other people have questions as well.

Um.

How long have you, has it been running a deficit?

In other words, when did it start?

Oh, our CalPERS plan?

Yeah.

Um, I actually don't know that, but for a very long time, I would imagine since, um,

I'd imagine well over a decade, but we could look into that.

I, I just don't know offhand.

Okay.

Thank you.

The microphone button is so sensitive.

Okay.

Um, I do have one follow-up question.

Um, essentially around, uh, sort of a follow-up actually to member Johnson's question, which was like,

how do departments go about figuring out what to cut?

Um, you know, we sort of take this approach where every department equally should cut a similar amount.

Right?

Uh, at least at start.

That was like the, how we get there.

You said, I think 15, if you had to cut your budget by 15%, you know, what would you cut?

Right?

And you sort of create that to your list of one through four of, of severity.

Um, and then after those are all sort of submitted, um, make council staff, they sort of go through

them and make their recommendations accordingly.

Right?

Um, I guess to me, this seems a little bit blunt because if some program or department, uh,

is say having a larger impact on the community than maybe another one, um, a reduction, like

having them be cut equally would be, you know, so.

I would say we, we didn't want to cut everyone equally.

That's why we asked for a much bigger target than our deficit, um, is so that we could say,

okay, well, yeah, department A, um, these cuts are going to be horrible for everybody.

Department B, you know, it would suck to go down to 15%, but they're not that bad.

Um, and then we also have some departments like our friends sitting in the back, public

works who brought in, uh, who had some revenue opportunities and brought in way more than

their target.

Um, but what really what we wanted to avoid was the kind of one size fits all cut everyone

the same amount approach.

And, uh, we didn't even look at it really on a department by department basis making decisions.

It was on a service law service by service basis when making decisions.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

Okay.

Um, I guess with that, uh, there's nobody else who wants to talk.

Uh, thank you so much for your guys' presentation and time here and we will move on to the next

agenda item.

Let me get that pulled up real quick.

Okay.

Uh, we're moving on to agenda item number four, uh, cause we did not have any action items

for the committee to vote on here.

Uh, department or development and approval of recommendations regarding fiscal year, uh,

2025, 2026 measure you budget priorities.

Okay.

So this is, I guess something that I, we've been pushing off for quite some time.

Um, this is that agenda item.

Am I right?

No, these are the budget recommendations.

Oh, these, okay.

So this is, this is that one that we're going to be typing on.

Okay.

Yeah.

So before we start this item, I think we just kind of want to walk the commission through

what we think is staff is kind of the best process.

We understand an ad hoc committee met, kind of developed some draft recommendations.

We've passed that out as paper copies.

And so our understanding of the commission's intent is that you want to sort of make some

edits to that, discuss, um, this draft, um, finalize it during this meeting and then basically

take a vote on that final version.

And so I'm going to hand it off to our attorney who has some suggestions on the best way to

do that.

Yeah.

Just a really quick primer on parliamentary procedure for editing a document like this

from the dais, which normally wouldn't happen.

Um, so once I'm done talking, one member could move to adopt the recommendations and sorry,

all of you should have this on paper.

I know it wasn't included in the agenda cause it was submitted late.

Uh, it's also available to the public.

Um, so once I've been talking, a member could move to make this the official recommendation.

It would then require a second and then the body would engage in discussion of the item.

Uh, during your discussion, if a member wanted to make a recommended edit to the document,

they could, uh, ask if the recommended edit could be taken as friendly.

It's a term of art in, uh, yeah, friendly amendment.

Um, if the original mover and seconder of the motion, um, agree that it's friendly, then

the edit can be made to the document and no votes required saves everyone time of having

to vote on every single edit.

If the original movement or seconder does not take that as friendly, then the member

that wants to make the edit could then say they'd like to make a motion to amend.

And then there'll be a vote on whether or not to accept their edit or not.

So that's vote procedurally how we can get through the item.

If there are edits.

So for each change that we want to make this document, the original, uh, mover and the second

will have to say, I accept that as a friendly amendment.

Correct.

Okay.

Um, so we do have first a public speaker on this agenda item.

Um, bring them up now.

Thank you, chair.

Um, we have one speaker, Mr. Lambert Davis.

Yes, sir.

I've, uh, I've had many disagreements with Ash Regani, but I appreciate him handing this

to me because I had a chance to look this over.

And the one thing that got my attention right away, and this is true because I went to a lot

of measure you meetings with, uh, mayor Steinberg.

It says, and this is true before they combined it with the general fund.

Had they told me in a lot of people in the city that they were going to combine measure

you with the general fund.

I know I wouldn't have voted for that.

That's why you have the, uh, discrepancies going on.

And, uh, John Cook, uh, I appreciate your inquiry because it's always good to inquire when

there's, uh, confusion when it comes to math.

There should never be confusion, not math.

Uh, it also talks about, uh, measure you was passed to uplift communities most impacted

by historic disinvestment, not to reinforce status quo.

Budget decisions must reflect that commitment.

That's true.

I'm from district two and my family's been there since 1946.

I know this city and I know district two district two has over 20 communities.

No other district has 10.

And if you know math, if you take 5 million and put it into a district is divided.

So district two to me should get most of the measure you money.

And another thing, when I heard them say the, uh, graphs and they went to different departments,

you didn't hear one person, one department say, uh, we're working remotely.

Let's not get a raise.

That's important.

And I have people that are looking into how much money can be saved by not paying people

a raise remotely.

We're going to have that figure.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete chair.

I have no more speakers on this item.

Great.

I think it would be good to introduce this item a little bit.

So, um, obviously this was put together largely by the, um, budget committee, uh, ad hoc committee.

Um, and I know that member Sulla and member Piscola were like sort of the leaders, at least organizing

that.

Um, maybe one of you guys can introduce the document a little bit and sort of high level,

uh, before we dive into details.

Sure.

So, um, so right now I'm just introducing this, but we're not making it.

I'm making a motion to introduce this.

Correct.

I don't need to make a motion to introduce this document right now before we start just

having a discussion.

Right.

Yeah.

You don't have to be the one to make a motion.

Okay.

If you don't.

Okay.

Um, so thank you.

And I, I, I want to apologize that we weren't able to get this to Ash in time to make it

in the agenda, um, prior to today.

But it, it took a little, we, there was three of us, four of us that met.

It was, um, Nikki, uh, Commissioner, um, Pascual, Commissioner Fry Lucas, Commissioner Rojas,

uh, myself.

Yeah.

And then, um, chair, um, well, you weren't part of the ad hoc.

It was just, we were ad hoc.

And we started our discussion about, and we looked at what was funded last year.

Uh, not our recommendations, what were part of our recommendation, but what ended up being

funded by the city.

And, and we started there with looking at what we wanted our recommendations to be what our

priorities were.

And that's what, um, of course, always, and it's been pretty consistent and we didn't deviate

from that as affordable housing and supportive services.

Um, and, um, and then you, you, you see it here.

So we came up with our priorities and our recommendations.

And then we went on to laying it out in accountability and equity.

And that was an important piece because that continues to be an important piece for what

we've already heard people, um, say and in the community and the focus groups and, and

even, um, my fellow commissioners is, is the accountability piece with them, with the, um,

money and the funding.

Um, so, and then our fiscal responsibility as well.

There was, so we put this document together.

We, we edited and made comments on Google docs.

And then once it was, everyone kind of was okay with it, there were still some pending issues

to be discussed.

And I'll let the commissioners who, who want to bring some up some of the issues.

We can do that later.

And that was, um, one is participatory budgeting.

And I know I was one of them that was really saying and indicating we need to put that in

this document and say, that was a great process.

Two years ago, we were promised we were going to not promise.

Well, yeah, I would take it as a promise that the mayor two years ago or maybe, yeah, promised

that at mid-year budget review that he would consider entertaining, giving monies to participatory

budgeting.

At that point, everything blew up and they were, they didn't do a mid-year budget review.

And, um, so it kind of just went away.

We tried to bring it back by having presentations of those organizations that, uh, took a little

bit of money and did some great work.

And, uh, and so we had a discussion of, do we put that in here and say, we, we want to

get this funded again or keep it in mind to get funded in the future.

And I, I, I went back and forth on that.

And I think, um, there were several commissioners that did as well.

So it's not included in here because I wasn't sure to say we want, we want a million dollars

of participatory budgeting money to go to participatory budgeting or we don't mention it and we wait

till next year to bring it up.

Realistically speaking, I've been attending these budget.

I intended last Tuesdays and just seeing the budget.

I, um, it's not the time to be asking.

So, and that would be in a new ask.

Some of these recommendations are redirecting funds, but it's not a new ask.

So that's why it's not in here.

The other piece that goes to accountability.

And that was the whole issue of data that we have been struggling with for a while,

trying to get the accountability piece to departments.

If you, if the department indicates, this is what I'm going to do with this money that I'm getting from measure U.

We want to see the data to assess impact.

Because, because when these recommendations that we, we came up with and, and the discussion we had,

it goes always back to the same thing that, that I, as being on measure U for the last few years,

is how do we know that it's really making a difference?

And I think the question some have asked, like, if, if we didn't have measure U,

what would happen to these programs?

So is, is, is the money that they're receiving for what they have stated they're,

they want to do with the money, is it having an impact?

Is it making a difference?

We don't have that data, so we can't make an assessment.

So if one program is making a difference and another one isn't,

the one that isn't making a difference shouldn't get the money.

We should give it to the one that's making the impact.

So, but, and that's a, that's a debate to, I would like to discuss here,

because I also see and think to, to our chair and to Pete and the finance department

really working very closely to come, to come up with some basic matrix of, of gathering some data

that might prove that.

And that for, when I, budget and audit, the city council, the way, or the budget and audit committee,

the way I read that is they're interested, they're supportive in beginning that dialogue

and, and get it going in that direction.

So it, it's going to take a while because it's just going to take a while.

I don't understand why, but, but I left feeling like it's a start and it's going to take a while.

So I, I, there was a sentiment that there should be a statement in here saying,

if you, if departments don't give us data to show that they're making a difference

and they're having an impact that could compromise their funding.

It's not, it's kind of says it in here, but not really, not to that extent.

So I think that's worthy of discussion.

I think, is there something I'm missing?

That you want to add?

Yeah, I'll, I'll chime in.

I agree with, with a lot of the things you said.

Um, I think I'm personally of a different opinion that I think we should still ask for the participatory

budgeting money because I think it's incredibly impactful and I think it serves the purposes of Measure U.

And I think it's really important that we be careful about how our Measure U funds are invested into the community

and ensure that it's doing the things that it was originally intended for,

whether that's the enhancing essential public safety through 911 response, fire protection, community neighborhood policing,

or the other essential services, homeless support services, affordable housing, libraries, park maintenance,

high wage job creation, youth programming.

If it's not doing those things, it shouldn't be eligible.

In my professional experience, if you ask for money to do something that is not what the money is intended to be funded for,

you're not eligible.

So I think we need to stand on our principles.

City Council can do whatever they decide to do, but I think it's really important that we advocate for those things.

City Council Casino and Vиссio Good

Go.

mark Woman 5

First, I wanted to give a shout out to Member Sala for taking the lead on putting this together.

It's hard to do, I mean, it's hard to do in general to synthesize a lot of different people's thinking.

to synthesize a lot of different people's thinking,

but particularly because, you know,

there's a short timeline between when the budget comes out

and our recommendations are due,

and we haven't had the benefit of having spoken

to the budget experts that are here tonight.

And so you're kind of looking at spreadsheets

without a lot of context.

So I just wanted to say thank you to her again.

On the participatory budgeting issue,

I mean, looking at the projected deficits

are as far as the city's doing projections, it seems like.

So I'm not sure there's going to be a time

when there's, you know, when that chart is in the green

and we're like, hey, there's cash out there,

let's go try to get it from the council.

So to me, that argues for like, we should just,

we should keep asking.

And I think also there's value in that process,

even in a negative, or when we're in a deficit,

because if the council is looking to us,

as they have said they are,

to be leading that kind of conversation

with the community about where, you know,

how decisions are made and engaging,

engaging the community and making those decisions.

The community understanding the trade-offs

about why Measure U programs are getting cut

is just as important, if not more important,

than them understanding what's getting funded, I think.

So I just wanted to kind of throw in a suggestion around that.

Okay, so I think this is going to be a bit complex

of a process, but maybe what we can do

before we start typing is like discuss high-level points

that members want to make or like think should be changed

and then rather than going like and start editing right away.

And then once we've had all that discussion,

we can focus on typing it out, whatever those changes may be.

I also just, yeah, I want to also shout out to the subcommittee

because this was like super tight timeline.

Basically, we get the budget and then, you know,

a week later you have to start meeting

and pumping out some suggestions around it.

And then we got the Measure U like changes,

I think a week ago or so, a week and a quarter ago.

And then it's like, okay, how do we incorporate those?

So it's very tight and it's definitely not like

the most sustainable process for everybody

to get their opinion in, but we do the best we can.

Okay, Member Sala or Member Smith, I'm not sure which one.

Actually, I think Member Gorse was first.

Oh, I see, Member Gorse.

Okay, got it, yep, Member Gorse.

Yeah, thank you.

I just want to say quickly, Commissioner Sala,

thank you so much for putting this together,

Member Pascal.

It was a lot of work and it was really tight

for us to get together, but somehow we got it.

So thank you.

I want to mirror Commissioner Rose's comments.

I think we still have to continue to need to ask.

If you remember, Commissioner Sala,

when we first came years ago asking

for participatory budgeting, we had to keep asking.

We asked for an amount.

We had discussions when they finally said yes.

The amount we asked for originally, they said no.

And it was just an ongoing discussion.

So I think it's our duty to keep asking.

So just wanted to say that.

Now Member Smith or Sala.

I just want to, do we want to get into,

just to point out, because I was remiss,

I didn't point out a couple things

that we recommended in here.

Like we're not supportive of the $1.3 million reduction

in youth programming, Measure U.

and then we also highlighted,

I know that the Hart Center has a certain amount of money

that they're receiving, a large amount of money,

and there was a discussion that we felt.

They're not the only center that provides senior services,

and it's, and in particular, underserved communities,

they're providing a valuable service,

but they're probably not getting the resources to do that service.

Well, Hart Center, because it's in Midtown,

I don't know why they're receiving a big chunk of money,

and so we want to look at,

is there a way to redistribute some of those resources

so they might go to senior centers

in historically uninvested areas

in poorer, more, poorer neighborhoods.

And then this one always,

it was funny because we had already discussed this,

and then at last Tuesday's meeting,

I heard this issue come up

about the unfilled vacancies with the police department

and taking some of that money

because the presentation on community prevention programs

that are so important, it isn't, safety isn't defined,

and I heard Council Member Mai Vang talk about,

was it 2019, there was the city council adopted

a definition of what is safety,

and it included community-based approaches

and innovation in there as part of the definition

of what makes safety,

but yet safety gets all of the monies

and very little goes to community interventions

and programs.

So that's why that's in here,

looking at that, redirecting through whether it's a couple FTEs

and redirecting it to these community-based programs.

And then this wasn't in number four on the other side,

this wasn't originally in our draft,

but after Tuesday's meeting,

I was at the Tuesday meeting,

and I saw that DEI,

the department of DEI for the city,

has two people and has one FTE,

so three FTEs, and it's being recommended,

they cut one FTE,

and I was like,

they're already responsible for all DEI programs,

training, education, the equity tool,

and so all of the things they're trying to do

to move this whole process forward

and make everything the city does equitable and just,

and then to take away one of their FTEs

makes it almost even more impossible.

So after hearing that,

I added this

and presented it to the group,

and they all agreed with that.

So those are just things

I just wanted to point out

in the document.

That's it.

Member Johnson.

Yeah, my initial big picture question

is the same that I proposed

to the finance department

of how do we develop our goals?

Because that's, you know,

as an attorney, basic things,

you've got to think of

what's the rule I'm applying here

and what are we looking at

in order to do our jobs effectively?

And I highlighted our goals

in the measure of the ordinance,

which includes advancing racial,

economic, and gender equality,

strengthening community health and safety,

and supporting inclusive economic development.

Those are great goals,

and I think they're very worthy.

But I, doing preparation for this meeting,

I'm realizing I don't know

where those goals come from

because the ordinance itself is,

I think, let's be real intentionally vague.

And the city ordinance

that I think created this commission

is also potentially intentionally vague.

And they do use the term

inclusive community economic development,

but it's not defined anywhere

on what that means.

And so I just want to have a conversation

of like how did you guys develop these goals?

Where did they come from?

Are they just individual goals

based upon the interpretation

of what we think Measure U has passed?

Because I actually helped Measure U passed.

I worked on the campaign.

And I think it was a great cause.

And I'm very proud to serve on this commission

because I think it does

and has done a lot in this community.

But I want us to make sure we're on the same page

when we're making recommendations.

Where are these goals coming from?

And how did we define them?

So we're on the same page there

before we get to everything else

because I think this is really great,

but I want to make sure we are

all on the same page

of what we are first legally entitled to do.

And then the next step is

what do we want as a commission to do

to promote those goals that we developed?

So I know this might be, again,

something I should have really hammered down

a few meetings ago.

But now that this is really in front of me,

I want to just have a conversation,

especially with the ad hoc committee

to develop it just so I can better understand

how that was approached.

And I think that would be helpful for me.

And I appreciate, again,

the work that went into this.

I know how much time it takes to do this

and then to do it on top of it.

I do really appreciate it.

And I know there's a lot of time and effort

that I put into that.

And I want to make sure that's clear.

I can give my two cents to that

because I think it kind of was an open question.

Obviously, the actual code written as it is

is extremely vague.

And you could fit any program

that you wanted into Measure U.

However, that doesn't mean

that the city is not accountable

to the intention of that measure that was passed

because in the past,

there was an attempt to basically put a lot of money

from Measure U into public safety, like police.

And there was a bit of a community outcry

and that got reverted.

So there's like a soft side of the,

I guess soft power, you could say,

of like community expectations

of what Measure U is supposed to fund.

Not to mention the fact that like this is not,

Measure U has come onto the ballot multiple times

to increase the tax.

And so it has to keep up its expectation

or people will start to be like,

you know what, we don't want to do this anymore.

And so there's going to,

there's expectations to fulfill.

Although they are not, you know, legally,

I suppose, coded in, it's sort of like,

I think it's like we all know what Measure U stands for

because either you voted for it,

you campaigned for it, right?

You knew what the message was.

I think we can still stick to those.

Now, what are those exactly?

I think it is a little bit intangible

and everybody has a different idea

of what those are,

very similar to balancing a budget.

You know, people want this program

or that program more than the other.

But when we say like economic inclusion,

I think what we mean is there's many communities

out there that were disenfranchised

that sort of took, were on the sidelines

when programs were being funded

and like we want to make sure

that that money gets spread out a little bit,

you know, to the districts

or otherwise that were not well funded.

So that would be my two cents.

I think, I don't think we're going to be able

to come up with like hard definitions

for each of these.

I know it's a little bit unsatisfying,

especially as a lawyer.

But it is what it is, right?

But, you know, in terms of like how,

what people, I think we all kind of come

to consensus of what that is,

even if it's not explicit.

Yeah.

I don't know if that helps.

Anyway, moving on to Drogsky or Novello.

I'm not sure who.

Okay, cool.

Both of you guys.

Yeah, great.

Hi.

Well, thank you all for the work that you did.

And I just, you know, I'm in agreement,

I think, with both considerations to add,

both for accountability

and the participatory budgeting.

And I just, you know,

to kind of pee back off of the conversations

that we're having here around the goals,

you know, understanding Measure U

the way that I understand it,

I fully agree about our disagreement

in the $1.3 million reduction.

And I think, you know,

we talked with the department came here, right?

And they talked about that funding.

I actually went back

and I rewatched their presentation on it.

And that $1.3 million funded 200 events

in the community.

It gave funding to 25 CBOs.

And over 7,500 youth participated in those events

along with their families.

And we also just listened to our budget committee

talked to us about how the federal funding

is actually going to mostly impact

our community-based organizations.

And they are really the ones

that are highly at risk here

of losing their funding.

And so we really need to think about

if we're here to fill the gap

and if we're here to promote public safety,

we're here to promote positive youth development,

which ultimately helps fulfill

a public safety goal in the long run,

then we really need to make sure

that we're investing

in these community-based organizations

that are there working with young people

and working with their families.

So I would say that not only

do we need to put this in here,

I would also encourage us

to word it maybe a little bit more strongly

about how in opposition this is

with the goals of Measure U to reduce that,

especially when, again,

the bulk of the funding for Measure U

is going towards these vacancies.

A very small amount of it

is going towards this violence prevention,

the public safety, the actual community organizations

and gang prevention work.

So I would really encourage us to emphasize this

and think about not just the short-term impact

that that would have.

Think about the reduction of 200 events in the community,

7,500 youth not having a place to go

on a Friday night or a Saturday night

that's free for them, free for their families,

free for their siblings to go to,

that's a safe place for them to go

and have a positive impact

and a positive experience

with trusted adults

that can be good mentors for them.

Think about the long-term impact

that that's going to have

on those young people

and on the communities.

Ditto to whatever she said

because that is 100% right on the money.

And again, thank you to those of you

who participated in putting the document together.

I don't only agree with the premise

of the conversation.

I think every single one of you

has brought up really good points.

And I think that there is a point

where the goals of the committee

and what we're doing here

will come to a point in where

then we need to figure out a way

to not only measure it

and figure out ways in which we can set

the parameters for accountability

and sustainability purposes.

If we can just continue

to throw money in empty places

that don't really give us a return

on that investment

or doesn't bring the benefits

to the communities,

then we are responsible for that.

And that's how I feel about it.

For instance,

I saw on Attachment 4,

there was a few deletions of FTPs to Gypsy,

but there were equipment

that will be purchased for specific things.

So there's a point in where

are we okay with staying,

especially during times of a deficit,

with a phone that may be old right now

instead of getting the brand new one.

And how can those fundings

then get redirected

to ensure that they actually goes to,

again, serve the purpose of those fundings.

So again, there's definitely

a lot of points of conversations

that are being made.

I do agree that we need to make sure

that at least in our recommendation

to the city council,

a lot of those points are made

in a more stronger way,

which is because I know

that this type of conversations

are not only happening here.

They're happening in a budget committee

and there's a lot of other points

in where I'm sure

that our friends who are sitting

in the audience

are really concerned about.

But ultimately,

you mentioned a soft cry

of things being eliminated.

The participant,

I'm going to have a really hard word

pronouncing that word,

but the participant,

the PV, yeah, there you go.

Thank you.

The PV,

if we don't continue enhancing

that practice,

I'm sure that there's going to be

a lot of people knocking at our doors,

sending our emails,

saying where did this go?

And if there's a point

where we're going to continue

that practice on single

off-top of funding,

it's just not going to get us

to a point where we can set

those standards

and those parameters

to ensure that not only

we're holding ourselves accountable

and providing the matrices

and the parameters

on how we need

to evaluate our recommendations,

but also to tell our folks,

hey, this is how your money

has been used

and this is how it's being reinvested

back into your communities.

Okay.

Member Cook.

I can certainly appreciate

that there are many programs

which could be funded

by Measure U,

but I find myself

trying to understand,

like,

what is the language

of the ballot

and does the language

and spirit of the ballot

in 2018 reflect

the priorities in 2025?

Like,

to me,

that's the mental model

I try to use

to understand

is the Measure U

fund

being allocated

in a way

that is aligned

to what the voters

approved in 2018?

That's the model.

So when I look at

the language

of the ballot

in 2018,

what I see,

I'm just reading this verbatim,

public safety,

911,

fire protection,

community neighborhood policing.

Public safety,

is the first,

second,

third,

and fourth item

on the ballot.

Then I reconcile that

against how are funds

being allocated today

in 2025

based on the most recent iteration

of the Measure U budget

that's been presented.

And I see that public safety

is not even the first,

nor is it the second,

nor is it the third line item

with respect

to the allocation

of Measure U funds.

Like that's not an assertion

or opinion,

it's just a statement of fact

by looking at how the budget

is allocated today.

Is that a fair comparison?

I'm just,

I'm looking,

respectfully,

Commissioner Cook,

the question isn't whether

or not the,

the line item spending

matches up

with the original intent

of the Measure U

language.

It is whether or not

first,

the recommendations,

it matches up

with the recommendations

of this commission,

which are not always reflected

in the Measure U budget.

Is that a fair comparison?

I can certainly appreciate that.

I think what I'm trying

to like reconcile

in my mind is,

are the funds

being allocated

in such a way

that the voters

approved in 2018?

I think that,

that's the question

I'm trying to answer.

I don't know the answer to it.

Like,

that's like the thought exercise

I'm going through right now.

And then when I see,

you know,

some of the recommendations

with respect

to the reallocation,

redirect of police vacancies,

I just ask myself,

does that align

with what the voters

approved in 2018,

given that the first,

second,

third,

and fourth item

on the ballot

are all related

to public safety?

So,

throwing that out

into the ether

for discussion.

Okay,

next is member Sala.

Yep.

And I think,

did you want it,

did you want it to speak?

No.

After, okay.

So, let me,

when the Measure U

commission was first put,

when they first come together,

I joined a year

after it had already

been in place.

And I came,

I voted for Measure U

with the understanding,

not the understanding

that most of it

was going to go

for public safety

because most of us

did not read

the ordinance.

What we voted on

was what was put

in front of us

in the public

and you who worked

on the marketing,

you marketed it

to all of us

that it was

for underserved,

under-resourced communities.

That's what that extra

half cent was going to be.

That's what the community

voted for.

That's what I voted for.

When I agreed

to be on the commission,

that's what I thought

I was doing.

Then when I came

and I saw that Measure U,

75% of Measure U's budget

at that time

when I joined

was going towards

fire and police,

they were,

the commission,

the commissioners before me

were already upset

with that

because they were like,

that's,

that's all of our Measure U money

going towards that.

and there was a lot

of debate

and then

when we did

the community survey

a few years ago,

prior,

there's been a few

since then

and they put it out

to the community.

What,

how,

what would you like,

how do you,

what do you think

Measure U should be funding?

And it was not

fire and police,

it was other things.

So that validated

what a lot of the commissioners

already felt.

Like,

that's not what

the people voted for.

Even though the ordinance

was very clever

in writing it

very vaguely

but when it was marketed

to all of us

that's not,

if they would have said,

well,

it's going to go for,

for police and fire

I can tell you

it would have lost.

We would have never

agreed to it.

People would have not

because there was already

a big discussion

and continues to be

a discussion

that police,

police in particular

is the biggest part

of our public safety,

police and fire,

the biggest part

of our budget

and the police get

a large amount of money

and that there's always

a debate that that

should be redirected

and that's a political,

a political decision

and philosophical decision

but Measure U,

there was quite a bit

of discussion

and then with that

the recommendation came

to we want to,

instead of giving 75%

of Measure U funds

for the police

will give them

a portion of it

for increasing diversity,

that's where that,

that whole piece

of that Measure U money

is going

for increasing

the diversity

of an outreach

in diversifying women,

race and ethnicity

in the police and fire

and that shifted

and it was,

it came to 17 mil,

whatever for the police

and et cetera.

So that's how

that shift happened

but that was a discussion

that happened in length

with the commissioners

in redirecting

and I think you,

you were here,

you know,

it was a painful discussion

that happened

with the finance people

but that was the agreement

and shifting,

that's why you see

the shift

that it not being,

it's no longer a priority

because the community

really and truly

did not vote for it

thinking it was going

to be public safety

and actually

when,

when the Measure U

was recommending

shifting the monies

and not have it

be so much

focused on public safety,

the fire department

came and said

the reason it passed

was because of us

because we voted,

we advocated,

we got the people

to come out

and vote

and support Measure U

because it was,

the ordinance

was for that

but anyway,

so that was

a thorough,

thorough discussion

and so from that point

on,

all of our recommendations

have not put public safety

as the number one,

the number one recommendation

even though you're right,

the ordinance says that.

it's,

that was the shift

and,

and,

and I,

I think it would have been

an important discussion

to really talk about.

You're all new.

I think it's,

it's,

Commissioner Gorgas

and Commissioner Pasquale

and myself

that have been around

the longest

but you have a new commission.

This is,

we're,

we're,

I'm on my way out.

there's a new commission

here now

and it's really up to you

to just determine

the direction you want

the,

the commission to continue

to go in the funding.

So,

I just want to give

a little context

of why,

why it's a little bit different.

The focus is now

than,

um,

what's in the ordinance.

Member Johnson?

Yeah,

I first want to say

that I didn't do

any of the marketing.

I'll measure you.

I just made some calls,

uh,

because yeah,

I agree.

That's how I understood

it was,

right?

And I'm like,

where did that come from though?

And I really think

it became from the argument

for Measure U,

which I found

and it's for stuff like,

uh,

to,

it's really to,

to,

to restore the cuts

from the,

the 2012,

uh,

2012 cuts,

including,

you know,

there is,

uh,

emergency response

and community protection,

but there's also

staff and parks departments,

funding for libraries,

parks,

neighborhood services,

Sacramento's homelessness crisis

is a growing problem.

So there's a lot of that kind of,

what I'm going to summarize

maybe as community vibes,

chair,

that maybe you put out of like,

I,

I agree.

It's like this,

it's,

it's subjective

and I'm okay

with us recognizing that

and knowing that they're squishy.

I just want us to

say the quiet part out loud

that we're kind of coming up

with the goals

based upon our feelings

and our,

and our experiences

in the community.

I know we tried to do

the focus group

that provided some value,

but you,

we didn't have a huge sample size.

So it's hard to try

to get all that stuff.

But I do think

it's our job to kind of,

if we're okay with that,

kind of get in the vibe

for lack of better term.

I'm sure there's more

of a specific

of what measure you

was intended to pass

because I remember

I voted for it,

right?

And I agree with you,

but we still have to come back

to like,

what is our,

our,

our,

our,

our job.

And it is kind of

this advise on community.

I,

I don't want to find

the many tabs I've opened,

but advise on the,

the community priorities

and this inclusive,

inclusive economic development.

So I'm okay with that.

I just want us to be clear

because when we say like,

recommend that funding

allocated to Hart Center

be equitably redistributed.

I don't know much

about the Hart Center.

Like what is the reasoning

behind that individual

kind of decision?

I just want to know

so I can vote on it

and that kind of thing.

And I know we're,

we're getting time,

but this I think is kind

of the main point

of what this commission does,

right?

So I'm okay with talking

about a little bit more.

So I just want to say,

I don't disagree with that.

I just want us to be clear

on we are kind of all

developing it a little bit

and to recognize it

because we're not given

a lot to go off of.

And I also want to real

quickly recognize too

that it bleeds

in the general fund,

right?

It's not our fault.

And they have a tough

decision of balancing

and making sure

we get our city services.

How much do we have to,

partake in that?

Like are we just

in the Measure U Fund

and just this argument for

or do we also want

to make sure,

remember,

balancing a budget

helps everybody too.

Like having a structural

deficit is not something

we can just ignore.

So maybe we each

individually make

our little assessments

like that.

I really appreciate

your strong advocacy

for the youth programs.

I think that's fantastic.

But I want us just

to be clear

on what those values are

and why we're doing it.

That's all I bring it up

because it was a little

ambiguous in my mind.

I'm getting a clearer vision

now that everyone's

kind of in the same page

of, yeah,

this is what we kind

of just feel.

But I think we all bring

something different

from the community.

I know everyone here

has looped into

a bunch of organizations.

So I think we provide

that value and expertise.

can I just quickly say

that I also in their state

and I didn't,

is it like they're

recommending fee increases

because that's a revenue

opportunity for the city,

fee increases for programs,

youth program.

and I'm talking about

the youth mainly,

the youth programs.

But in historically

disadvantaged communities,

any little increase

for a program,

it's going to be detrimental.

And now we're getting,

and our youth,

and I'm just generally,

our youth,

they have no other opportunity

to participate in any kind

of program other than

the services that YPSI provides

and to increase the fees

a little bit.

I don't support that.

But if they want to do it

in a more affluent neighborhood

that they have the resources,

fine.

And the other piece is,

I know that there's a stipend

or I don't know

if you call it a stipend

that measure you funds.

Like if you don't have

the resources,

you can apply

and it'll cover your fees.

And that's fine,

but it's not enough.

And I think it's a deterrent

if I have to apply

and put all this information

to justify that I'm poor.

I might not do it

and I say forget it.

I'm not going to participate

in this program.

So that's why I put that in there.

And then I think

with the heart program,

I'm not, I did,

so before,

and I'm going back

based on my past

and prior years recommendations,

we did indicate

that heart center,

yes, we want to support that.

It's Midtown.

It's a great program,

but it serves the immediate people

that live in that neighborhood.

So I know that someone

from Garden Land Northgate

isn't going to go

to the heart center

to get services.

They're just not going to do it

because they don't,

they don't know the people there.

There's no connection

culturally, linguistically.

So they're going to want to stay

in their immediate neighborhood.

And I,

and I just think that the money,

all that money

that the heart center gets,

just distribute it,

look at it and say,

well, do they need all of that?

Could we,

could we have some of that money

go to some of the other neighborhoods

where there are

a high number of seniors

that are maybe more isolated

linguistically and culturally

that they can,

that that's,

that's what that's about.

But I'm, you know,

I'll leave it up for discussion

and I'm done.

I mean,

I'm not done.

We're still in a lively discussion,

but at some point,

I'm just looking at the time.

We should start coming up with,

we should either make a motion

to recommend this,

get a second,

and then start working about,

working with language

because it's,

I can't see,

is it 7.30?

Yeah.

7.12.

Okay,

7.12.

So we're getting close

to where we'll have to make a decision

whether we extend it beyond 7.30.

Yeah,

I mean,

I think,

I think we have quite a bit of time still,

but I do,

yeah,

I want to refocus it.

I also want to just quickly add,

in terms of like,

the public safety comment,

public safety is important.

We all care about public safety.

I think the question is,

it's always a trade-off.

So it's like,

we have a set amount of money.

As Pete mentioned,

we can't print money.

So we have to like,

choose the programs that we fund

and don't fund.

Right now,

as he mentioned,

police get about 50% of our general budget.

So even though we don't really talk

about the general budget

because we're measuring you

or sort of a slice on the side,

it's just like,

okay,

well,

if one department's getting,

you know,

400 million,

another department's getting like 3 million,

but,

you know,

we think that's important too.

Like,

you know,

it's always a balanced game,

right?

Like,

we take a dollar here,

we give a dollar there.

And I think right now,

the general consensus

that I've felt,

at least through this committee,

is that like,

okay,

police have a good chunk.

Let's see what other programs

don't quite have it.

That being said,

you know,

it depends what the program is

because I think actually,

if you look at the gang prevention work,

almost everyone up here

would be like,

that is important work.

And that goes directly

under the police.

And so like,

that's,

it's just always going to be like

a give and take

at a program level,

sort of,

where do we want to invest?

And part of determining

which ones are good

and which ones we want to keep

is based off of whether or not

we get some sort of objective metrics

back on like,

what are you doing your job?

Or not doing your job.

That's a bad way to say it.

Are you getting the results

that you expect

or that we expect

as a community?

Yeah.

Doing your job

is a bad way of saying it.

But yes,

because I think everyone's

trying really hard in the city.

So yeah,

let's bring it back to this.

I guess we have some changes

that I've heard so far

and I wrote down a couple.

One is of course

introducing participatory budgeting

back into this document

as a suggestion.

The other one I wanted to,

or that seemed to come up

was the increased accountability.

And we do have an accountability

and equity section here,

but maybe we want to elaborate

on that a little bit.

I think member Rose

is pretty passionate about this

as well.

And I agree,

just sort of emphasizing the fact

that like if you can't show

the success,

then I don't really know

how you want to word it,

but you would be deprioritized

in terms of receiving funding

or something along those lines

from our perspective,

or you should be at least.

And then the last thing was

wording more strongly

the opposition to pull

from community programs.

And I think,

you know,

yeah,

including the numbers

that were mentioned

I think is important too.

On top of that,

coming up with a,

if we're not going to pull

from those community programs,

where are we pulling from?

Because we do need

a balanced budget

at the end of the day.

So figuring out

what we would maybe recommend

to pull from,

or if we don't want

to make that suggestion,

that's fine too.

But it seems like

those were the three largest.

Did anyone have anything

outside of that list

that they wanted to mention?

I know there's some speakers up,

but if anyone has something

they want to sort of

call out now.

I needed some clarification

about miscellaneous costs.

About what?

Miscellaneous?

There's something on here

about miscellaneous

at the end of the budget.

There's like,

I don't have them in front of me now.

Oh.

That's it.

I think that might be

from the prior presentation.

Yeah, miscellaneous.

No.

Oh, okay.

I see.

So the miscellaneous item

that is 11.2 million

with three FTE.

How can I get more information

about that?

Who are these people?

They're them?

Oh, can you explain

the miscellaneous item here

and perhaps tell me

who the three FTE

are and how they serve

the commission?

I don't have that

exact information right now,

but I can provide

that information to Ash

and have them send it

to the committee.

Perfect.

Thank you.

We actually do have

that data.

It's in our dashboard.

So if you look at the

Measure U 24-25 dashboard.

Oh, you want me to do it

on this?

Oh, okay.

Oh, okay.

And so you can see

it's like citywide

and community support,

like commission stipends,

IT maintenance,

employee development,

gen insurance slash termination

has 4 million.

That's a big chunk of it.

If not,

that's basically all of it.

I'm seeing 6.28 million here,

though.

I think you mentioned 10.

I don't know

where the 10 numbers are.

Oh, maybe it's,

well, the report I have here

had 11.

That may be the 26,

25, 26.

I believe this is

the proposed reduction.

This is page three

of the item three

in the packet.

Got it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Go back to what is it?

Who are these people?

What do they do

for the commission?

There are none.

Oh, interesting.

I mean, it's $11.2 million.

for three people.

Yeah.

To do something for us

and we don't know

what that is.

It's not all

associated with positions.

There's other funding

that the chair mentioned.

And I can provide

a breakdown through,

like just through Ash,

but some of the things

he talked about

were some of the,

like,

costing for insurance.

So it would be,

like, the measure you portion.

So our citywide budget

includes,

like, our liability insurance.

It includes

other post-employment benefits.

It includes

many things

that really aren't

department-specific.

And for any department

that has measure you funding,

we put the allocation

in that department.

So that would be

considered miscellaneous

because it doesn't fall

under a specific program area.

I was just talking

to my staff

about the three positions.

I think that they

may have been

put there temporarily

and should be going

to a different program area,

but we're going to figure out

what that is

and we'll get back to you.

But any of those changes,

if there are changes

that occur,

it will occur

before we approve the budget.

So I just wanted

to let you know that.

Yeah, because here

they're showing

as an FTE.

And I had another question.

Sure.

Did I hear you say

that you had

anticipated an increase?

I have a strong voice.

You anticipate

an increase

of 72%

for labor costs?

Or 72%?

So roughly

in the general fund budget,

roughly 70%

of costs

are for salary

and benefits.

So can we,

is there a number

we can project

for an increase

for next year

for FTE

under labor costs?

Is there a trend?

Yeah, so the,

I mean,

the trend is

generally up

and it's,

it's mostly

from pension liabilities

and things like that.

Is there a percentage

that we can apply

to FTE

to do an estimate

of what that might

look like next year

if we kept this like this?

The,

I'm not sure

if I 100%

understand your question.

We don't assume

in our forecast,

we don't assume,

we don't put assumptions

in around

the new labor agreements.

So if we were

to assume

for every percent,

we would assume

for a new labor agreement,

that would be

an additional $4.8 million

of costs.

What we put in there

are things that we know

like our CalPERS costs.

Anything that's known

if we know like

health insurance

is going to go up,

that's included

in their CalPERS costs.

But for the most part,

everything stays status quo

and whenever

we finalize labor negotiations

with specific unions,

whatever comes from that,

that's when we add it

to our forecast

and to our budget.

Okay.

And the labor agreement

has increased

percentages already marked

for various years

going forward, right?

So you know that-

So we don't make assumptions

around what the labor agreements

would potentially-

I mean, the existing one

already has,

like the one that's already been

agreed upon has increased.

Correct.

Anyone that's been signed.

So if we have a two-year

labor agreement with fire

and it's 5% each year,

we would put that in.

Right.

So that could add

towards like that increased

cost year over year.

Is that-

Correct.

That pre-agreed upon number.

There we go.

Okay.

I just want to move on.

It looks like,

Member Piscali,

do you have-

I think we've moved past-

Okay.

We're on to the,

I guess,

Member Cook.

Cook.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think-

Yeah,

we're moving on to you.

Yes.

I do,

but I don't want to be

the one asking all the questions

if we're moving on.

Oh, no, no.

You're good.

We're still on it.

Okay.

This question is for the finance team.

Since, you know,

you brought up the miscellaneous item

of 11 million,

it's a valid question

and I appreciate you asking that.

I was looking at this table

and I also see like

under the homeless services section,

a line item called

measure you support.

It doesn't appear

on the core expenditure section above.

How is that allocation handled?

Is that like a reallocation

within the fund?

Like where is that $13 million

coming from?

How should I think about that?

Yeah,

so that is the homelessness

and community response portion

of the measure you funds.

Got it.

So that $13 million

is in addition to,

that $13 million

is in addition

to the total expenditures

listed of $137 billion

in this table.

Is that correct?

So are you looking at the part

where it says homeless services

and measure you support?

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

That is the measure you contribution.

So that's what we contribute

to in regards to,

I think it's mostly like

project funding

and then also funding

for departments.

Is that $13 million

coming out

of the core expenditures

or is that in addition

to the 100,

the core expenditures

listed

in the section above?

The way that we

kind of do this

is a little funky.

It's like how we do

also our regular forecast.

It is in there

and then we pull it out

so we can highlight it

and then it's like,

so it's like there

and then we pull it out

so we can highlight

and it's like added back in.

So it's not counted twice.

It's just part of like

just the more of a transparency

so that not just the commission

but just in general counsel

understands the cost of homelessness.

So that $13 million

is included

in the total expenditures

of $137 million

or is not?

It is, right?

Yeah.

You can answer, Brian.

It is.

It's inclusive of the

the myop section

of community response

as well as the homelessness section

combined.

Thanks for clarifying.

Yeah, and then it's pulled out

so you can see

what the total expenditures

we're going for

homelessness are.

Okay, so given

there's no one else

who wants to talk,

I think we should probably

work on adding these things,

these changes to this document.

And this would be the point

where you'd probably

want to make a motion

and get a second

on the baseline recommendations

that are before you

and then as the attorney described

any changes would

potentially be friendly amendments

and or voted on separately.

Yeah.

And before that

we are closing in on 730

which would be our

two hour mark here.

So is there a motion

and a second

to extend the meeting

past two hours

per council rules

procedure section

or chapter 8

section D6?

I'll make a motion.

I'll second.

Motion and second.

That's fine.

Assuming we still have quorum

we could continue.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I have a motion

by Chair Georgiouf

and a second

by Commissioner Gores.

Let's just do the yay nay.

We actually have somebody

who's out.

I think Member Pescal

went to the restroom

but I guess she can...

Members Pescal and Sala

are absent for this vote

but we can still do a voice vote.

Okay.

Great.

Then all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anyone who wants to abstain

or to not want this measure?

Sorry.

No.

Okay.

Cool.

Yeah.

Excellent.

The meeting will continue

to 830 p.m.

Okay.

So now we can continue.

Let's make...

If somebody wants to make a motion

to approve this

and then make a second

and then we'll make

a soft or friendly amendments

to edit it.

In this motion,

we can't put also that

with the amendments mentioned?

We have to make a separate motion?

I think we could.

I'm sorry.

No, we could actually

because that would be

that would be the motion.

Yeah.

I will make the motion

that we accept

the baseline recommendation

with the amendments

discussed this evening.

Okay.

Sorry.

Can you repeat that?

Your microphone's on.

Oh, it is.

The light's on.

Hello?

Okay.

So I will make the motion

that we make the recommendations,

the baseline recommendations

here on paper

with the addition

of the discussion

as amendments

for recommendations

for our city budget.

Is that correct?

Did I do it right?

I think which would specifically

be the three things mentioned.

Adding participatory budgeting,

adding the increased accountability

and adding the stronger wording

for the opposition

to pull from community programs.

Yes.

Okay, cool.

You captured it.

Yes.

Is there,

is the intent

to have a finalized version,

like,

do you have language

to implement those edits now?

I do.

I can write them up publicly

here in this document

and then we can vote to amend it

or I can,

like,

vocally say them

and then we can agree on those?

Right.

So if the intent is to,

at the end of the night,

have a completed document,

then we'll need to do the edits

and then vote on the actual edits.

If the intent is to have

kind of rough guidelines,

then you're going to give direction

to a member

to then actually finalize the document

because,

you know...

I think that would honestly be better

unless there's...

Yeah, cool.

I'd rather do that.

That seems better

instead of doing live edits.

Do we agree or do you...

Yeah, so does that mean...

I just want to be clear.

That means

if you direct a member

to complete the language

and do all the wordsmithing,

it's...

We still...

We don't have to come back

and vote on it again.

Right.

And then we can present it

to budget and audit.

Right.

The member you designate

would be in charge of drafting.

You could give them guardrails

of verbal guardrails

that they would need

to write it within.

But that designated member

would have control

over the end product.

It's a big wording and stuff.

Yeah.

I think that's fine.

Yeah, I think that's fine.

That'll be better than doing it.

Absolutely.

But you spend all this time

with IT

trying to set this up at live.

I feel bad not to use it.

So, I mean,

just to put a pin on it,

I mean,

what...

You're giving this person

a lot of trust.

And so,

if you all...

have that level of confidence

in how you're delegating

that authority,

feel free to move forward in that.

But just know that

the final product

may not end up as refined

as if you were to go line by line

through the document

and see those edits

and vote on them.

I think that's okay.

I mean,

we'll make a motion

and see if everyone agrees with that.

But we have done that many times

in the past as a committee

and it's turned out

honestly pretty well.

Is anybody not willing

to just workshop it right now?

It's just a bit...

It is a bit difficult.

I think, like,

we're going to have to, like,

vote on every line.

I would...

I personally don't want to.

I think that would be better

to do the alternative.

Yeah.

But if you have something

that you want to add specifically

and, like,

you want to orate that now,

we can do that.

I think for funding recommendations,

number one should be

resume the participatory budgeting process.

Yeah.

I don't know if we all feel strongly

about a number.

I mean,

it was $1 million last time.

I'm inclined to say $10 million.

I think it's unrealistic,

but I...

We asked for $10

and then we went back

and we asked for $5

and then we got $1 million.

I say do it again.

Just a gap.

Okay.

Were there other things

that you wanted to add to that?

Yeah.

We'll just go through the list.

Yep.

I think in the very first paragraph,

we should reiterate

what the purpose of Measure U is

because we refer to it,

but we don't articulate it.

In the accountability

and equity section,

I think we need to reiterate

the purpose of this fund

so that when we're talking about

being accountable

to what this commission

was created for

and what these funds

are authorized by the voters for,

that we are actually

fulfilling the spirit of this purpose.

and I think for fiscal responsibility,

we need to either add

some criteria for eligibility

or some process

to ensure

that these funds

are being used

for the intended purposes

previously articulated twice.

So it's...

And on that last point,

is that something

that you're looking for

council to come and tell us?

Is something that we have to develop

or is that something

that we need to work with?

I would assume like

city council is responsible

for developing those processes.

I mean,

I think we could,

we could articulate something

that we think is fair,

but I don't know

that it's our responsibility to.

Sorry,

what was the last recommendation

after the accountability

and equity section

of re-adventing?

Having either some process

or criteria

that ensures

these funds

are being used

for the intended purpose.

Okay.

So,

I guess,

I guess it's kind of like

an open discussion,

but if people do want to speak,

I feel like

maybe we could keep order.

Yeah.

Is this a up-to-date list?

Can we,

or is it,

Member Boris,

did you want to talk next?

No, no,

that was making the motion.

So,

were you done,

Member Rosa,

or did you have more

that you want to add?

Member Rosa?

Member Rosa?

Max,

do you have more

that you wanted to add?

No, it's not.

No, okay.

Member Cook?

Do you have a hand up?

So,

sorry,

Member Cook?

Member Cook?

I think you alluded

to this earlier,

but this idea

that like a budget

is allocated to outcomes,

not just headcount

and or FTE,