Good morning.

Nope, not morning.

Good afternoon.

It's a script.

It gets me every time, man.

Welcome to what is it?

Monday, September 29th, 2025, meeting of the Metro U Community Advisory Committee.

This meeting is now called to order.

Will the clerk please call roll?

Thank you, Chair.

Members, please unmute your microphones.

Commissioner McGee.

Present.

Commissioner Smith.

Present.

Commissioner Salah is absent.

Commissioner Cook.

Present.

Commissioner Johnston.

Present.

Commissioner Goris.

Present.

Commissioner Novello.

Present.

Commissioner Gorofsky.

Present.

Commissioner Pascal.

Present.

Commissioner Fry Lucas.

Present.

Commissioner Rosa.

Present.

And Chair Georgioff.

Here.

Thank you.

We have quorum.

I would like to remind members of the public and chambers that if you would like to speak on an agenda item, please turn in a speaker slip when the item begins.

You'll have two minutes to speak once you are called on.

After the first speaker, you will no longer, or we will no longer accept speaker slips.

We'll now proceed with today's agenda.

Uh which first we'll do the land acknowledgement and pledge of allegiance.

Um moving down the line, Member Smith, would you be willing to do lead us in these?

We'll do the pledge first.

Okay, all right.

Please rise for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands.

So the original people of this land, the Nashan people, the Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains, Miwok, Pathwin Winton, Peoples, and Peoples of the Wells and Rancheria, Sacramento's only federal life, federally recognized drive.

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 of Sacramento's indigenous peoples.

History contributions and lives.

Thank you.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Thank you, Member Smith.

Okay, so our first uh business today is approval of the consent calendar.

Um 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.

Okay, great.

Um I guess I just want to quickly comment that we there is an additional item on here compared to normal, which is the dissolution of the budget ad hoc.

Um essentially staff felt it was best to rename this a little bit because this group was going to be in charge of and like sort of reestablish its um its responsibilities.

Basically, this was originally going to be uh the one that does the annual report.

Um, but it was also kind of combined with like budget review.

I feel like uh it's best that we sort of re-establish a new group of people who are going to work on the annual report specifically.

Um and so we're dissolving the budget ad hoc, which hasn't met in a few times anyway.

This is completely separate from the metrics ad hoc, which is still ongoing and there are still many efforts uh active for that.

But yeah, um, other than that, uh I just need a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar.

Um make a motion.

Member Pascal for second.

Second Smith.

And then I think we can just call uh quickly, like all who approve say aye.

Uh any abstain or any uh refuse deny.

No, okay.

Great.

Um then we'll move on to our first item in the discussion calendar.

Um, and this is gonna be the overview of measure you funded departments and programs from the Office of Public and Safety, but I think that we were going to have a staff presentation.

That department was not able to make it today.

They are gonna be rescheduled for next meeting or TBD.

TBD, but that's the hope.

Okay, so we'll skip this one for now, and we'll move straight to the overview of the fiscal year 26-27 budget process, um, featuring the lovely budget department and uh Pete Coletto help us out here.

All right, well, uh good good evening, Chair, Commissioners, members of the public.

I'm Pete Coletto, uh, the finance director for the city, and it is already time to start talking about the fiscal year 26-27 budget development.

Uh we presented to the budget and audit committee just around uh kind of setting up some parameters and just general guidance around the budget development process, and we wanted to update you and also um discuss uh maybe a little bit of a different way for the commission to get some more input into the budget process earlier in the process.

Uh so just to update everybody, uh this is where our budget forecast stands as of adoption of the current year's budget.

So you can see we were able to balance for fiscal year 25-26, and again, that was from a through a mix of one-time and ongoing balancing strategies, uh, but we still haven't cured our structural budget deficit.

And so we are uh we will be facing a uh another deficit for fiscal year 26-27.

Uh, we are hopeful that uh some state homelessness funding will will help lessen this a little bit, uh, but we will you know be coming back kind of mid-year after we've been able to analyze all of our revenues and expenses uh and update our forecasts and then really have that target for fiscal year 27.

Um so this is just the budget charter guidelines, just uh about how all of the um departments have to participate and how it is under uh guidance in the process established by the city manager.

Uh so for fiscal year 26-27, we're really uh looking at a similar process as the prior two years as far as what we're gonna be asking departments to do.

Uh so we're gonna be asking all of the departments, including the other charter offices, to come up with reduction strategies totaling 15% of their net general and measure you fund usage.

Uh this is again to create a menu of options for council to choose from.

Um we're also going to ask all the departments to you know, again, look at minimizing the impacts on the public and public services.

Um, and then you know, we're we want everyone to participate in one budget process.

So we're looking for everyone to submit everything to the budget division really on and follow all the timelines.

Um one thing I think a lot of you uh probably saw as we were going through the budget process last year.

Um, counts some council members asked us to come back with uh what would doing a two-year budget process look like.

And so there are there are cities that have two-year budgets, and really uh kind of the policy issue there uh as far as council is concerned, is how much uh how much one-time balancing strategies or how many one-time balancing strategies do you want to use?

So, how far do you want to go in in um kind of curing your structural budget issue?

Do you want to do it all at once or not?

And so we came with three uh options for the committee to consider.

So the first was balance the budget year and balance that following year.

So you know, you're really looking at pretty much all ongoing strategies and making those difficult decisions kind of earlier.

Um option two was hey, uh you could have a you could have a deficit in the year after the budget year, but do we want to set a cap to how big that could be as a percent of the general fund?

So one percent, two percent, three percent.

Uh and option three was continue the current process.

So just focus on the budget year and don't set any kind of guidelines for the following year.

So the committee uh did give us some some direction.

So they were uh they were supportive of uh having all the departments give the 15% reduction plans to give them menu of option.

Uh they do want us to come back to council with some options around uh potential second year balancing targets.

So council's gonna have a more robust discussion about that, and I think that'll be at the October 7th meeting.

Um and then another thing that we uh we brought forward.

Uh I I don't know if you all watched the budget hearings last year, but it got kind of confusing with a lot of council members making proposals from the dais.

And I know I heard from a lot of members of the public who were saying, hey, we we weren't sure what was going on.

Um so to the extent possible, uh, council members will present budget proposals in writing in as early as possible, really to increase transparency and analysis, but they still reserve the right to, you know, from the dais make proposals.

Uh so this is just a very draft high-level uh timeline.

Um, you know, we did last year those uh very in-depth last two years actually, very in-depth departmental reports from all departments to the council.

Uh this year, you know, the committee um directed that hey, we want it to be more financially focused.

So uh we used we are still planning on the departments to come and present, but it will be uh you know, much more focused on their finances and and what reduction strategies are thinking of.

Uh another kind of uh area of concern I've heard from a lot of commissioners, and I'm very sympathetic to is the way that our budget timeline works with us releasing the budget at the very end of April, uh council having their hearings in May, uh, the measure you commission schedule, you know.

The thing that I I've heard is hey, uh we don't have enough time to digest all of this, and then we don't have enough time to give our feedback to council, and it's very frustrating for us as commissioners, and um I think there's a lot of truth to that.

And so, you know, one of the things that that we were thinking, and uh, you know, I've talked with some people about uh another way for measure you to participate earlier in the process is if the commission uh wants to adopt some priorities uh at the front end, um, on especially on areas of things that you want to preserve or things that are up a priority for the commission to preserve on the front end, departments can then take that into account when they're doing when they're developing their budget balancing strategies.

So, you know, they're gonna really start doing that um kind of in the winter uh really, and so you know, one of the things that um we were thinking is you know, maybe at the next measure you meeting, and especially as you're reviewing your annual report, uh that might be a good time to have an item for for you all to discuss what your priorities are.

You can give them to staff, um, and we can take them into account for uh strategy development, and then you'll see in uh when we release the budget, you know, did departments do a good job of of from your perspective taking those into account or not, and you'll be able to give that feedback to council as well.

So it's not um kind of an either-or, but it's a both and and trying to get participation uh earlier in the process, and that helps us as staff just from hearing from other community leaders what's important.

Uh and so that is it for staff, and we're happy to take any questions.

Uh member Goris.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh thank you, Pete for the presentation.

Appreciate it.

So I have a quick question for you.

So if all departments return with a 15% reduction in their balancing strategy, would that help um balance our budget overall?

Yeah, that if they all come with 15%, that will be more than uh the deficit.

And so the thought behind that is um to give council some options.

Um they're not just getting a staff report that's only a balanced budget, and maybe they don't like some of the things we're cutting, uh, and then they have they go, hey, well, I want you to cut from this other department instead.

Um this is our way of letting them know that uh what would happen if you did that.

So um, you know, if you thought we were cutting too much from from parks, for example, and you wanted to cut from community development, you would have a list of strategies there that you could say, okay.

Well, I I don't want to reduce pool hours or whatever it is, I'd rather have permits take a longer time, and they can have that that discussion.

So it gives them just a little bit more flexibility for more conversations.

Exactly.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Member Pascal.

Thank you.

I just wanted to say that um I appreciate that you're uh open to different approaches or process for us to have our feedback because I do think that's been a huge frustration of ours.

And um it's nice to just hear that you're interested in in our thoughts.

Oh, great, thank you.

Uh member Cook.

Super helpful.

Thanks, Peter.

The uh the thing that I I still challenge with, I'm still struggling to understand, is the total scope of obligations the city is facing.

So any feedback is super helpful.

I I understand in that chart, it shows like a 300 million dollar deficit over the next five years.

That's the 60 million seventy 8090, it gets worse and worse.

Uh but like when I look at that, and then I just compare against the approved budget.

I see language that this cue that the shortfall that you're projecting, like it excludes labor contracts, future labor contract increases, it excludes unfunded capital needs escalations and homeless costs beyond the stated amount.

This is all like in this is actually from the prior approved budget.

So if I add back in like those obligations, 1.8 billion dollars in unfunded capital needs, like a 3% cost of living adjustment, like I get a number that's much higher than the $310 million.

Like if you take the $310, you add back the $1.8 billion, you add some like estimated labor costs of maybe $100 million over the next five years.

You get like a total structural obligation that's like north of $2 billion, which is about seven times larger than what was stated.

So am I thinking about this the wrong way?

How do you reconcile the uh unfunded capital needs of 1.8 billion dollars against the deficit that you're projecting there?

Is that being talked about at all?

How should we think about this?

Yeah, sure.

So there are a few things in there.

Uh the first around the the labor contract.

So, you know, one of the things you can always make an argument for kind of both ways of doing it, right?

So, do you want to make an assumption of what they will be or not?

Um we we don't, so we don't include things that aren't um kind of agreed upon obligations of the city, and then that lets council, you know, when they are negotiating with the labor groups to kind of understand what the impact of the various proposals are.

Um as far as the liabilities uh or capital needs, um, you know, we used to not even um we used to kind of track it, but it was kind of piecemeal all over the place, and it wasn't really compiled.

So uh two years ago we uh took our first shot of hey, let's uh not just in our capital plan, which we bring with the budget every year.

Let's not just talk about the things we're funding.

Let's talk about the things that we need to do, but we don't have the funding for.

So, you know, how much would it cost to get our our roads to you know the pavement condition index that it should be, how much is it gonna cost to replace our utility pipes?

Um, you know, how much are all these things going to cost that we don't have funding identified for yet, uh maintain our parks, things like that, and and compile them.

That's how we came up with the 1.8 billion.

Um, you know, the the good news about that is it's not something that it's not like a bond payment, right?

It's not something that you need to pay off every year, it's something you have some flexibility around.

Um the bad news is a lot of these things, the longer you wait, the more they'll eventually cost to fix.

And um, we also don't want our public to have substandard facilities.

So that's kind of the trade-off.

Um, as far as you know, are we thinking about it?

Yes, we are.

Uh, you know, the next step is we'll be uh working with budget and audit and council in the and the new city manager in the future of well, what are our priorities?

So we have this list of 1.8 uh billion dollars of of capital and maintenance needs.

You know, what what do we want to do first?

And then how do we want to look at financing it?

Um, you know, the other thing that I'll say is council passed some policies earlier this year to look to address um the unfunded capital needs and the unfunded pension liabilities.

So, you know, right now our budget is still uh structurally imbalanced.

That's not going to be the case forever.

Council is going to, you know, take um make decisions which will will raise revenues or lower costs or both and bring the budget into balance.

Um and then you know, what will happen is when we have one-time savings, uh, council's policy places some set aside for deferred maintenance, places some set of set aside for our uh unfunded pension liability.

And over time, those things will happen.

Um, you know, what I've been telling people is the you know, the time to start setting aside money for uh the best time to start setting aside money for this unfunded capital and deferred maintenance was decades ago.

Um, and we like most other places, most other cities, like the country, you know, wasn't wasn't upkeeping our infrastructure.

Uh but the second best time is today.

And so it's not something we're gonna cure um in a year or two, it's gonna take time, and we're gonna have to make uh decisions about what we want to do, and um you know, some things may not be priorities, and then we may not be able to do them.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

I appreciate the explanation.

I think the challenge that I have is that if you know you agree that roads, bridges, buildings need to be repaired in the next five years.

Why isn't that included in the deficit?

Why not just include the 1.8 billion dollars if we know it's an obligation that needs to be paid in the next five years?

I don't I don't understand, like I think that's the actual the problem I have is why is that not included in the growing deficit spending that's being projected on the screen.

Yeah, I mean we do have um some assumptions that we're gonna be spending a certain amount for capital every year, which is kind of which is included in that.

Uh but again it's the it's the variability, right?

So it's you uh or the variability on the timing of when you actually need to address these things and if you are actually gonna going to address them, right?

Um maybe you're not.

Maybe it's uh we're not going to maintain that, maybe we're gonna divest this asset because we can't afford to maintain it, or maybe we're gonna look at you know partnerships with other entities uh to do these things.

So that capital plan is uh it it's a planning document, right?

So it's meant to inform as as you come up with your plan where your but where your budget is your spending plan for the next year.

So is there like an actual finance strategy that's being developed for the 1.8 billion dollars?

It's something we're going to have some conversations with council about.

So the first step was um getting it into the plan, right?

And and being able to articulate to council and to the public here are our needs, and these are the projects that are unfunded.

Uh, the next step is going to be prioritizing those things.

And so is it life safety?

Is it you know what are your first, second, third economic development?

What are your priorities to address these?

And then the after you have that, then you start developing um your financing plan for those things.

Okay, I think I this is super informative.

Like, I think what I'm trying to figure out if there's a 1.8 billion dollars of repairs that need to be performed, there's some flexibility, there's a plan to do not do some of it.

Is is are the repairs, these obligations are they being triaged at all in such a way where the city council can say this must be done by 2027, this does not need to be done by 2030, and is that available?

I'm really curious.

I think the So I I would say uh if you take a look at the capital improvement plan, we have a whole section, which is the unfunded capital needs, and you can see all of the projects that we have in there.

Uh, but there are definitely things, you know, like uh this past year, I think we had to put a new HVAC onto the um emergency operations center because it it failed, right?

And that would have been building maintenance that we should have done uh or we hopefully would have done uh earlier, and you know, instead we had to kind of do an emergency repair on it.

Uh but I I would encourage you to take a look at that and you can kind of see what those uh what those projects are.

Cool.

This is my last question.

Thank thank you for this super helpful.

So in the context of measure you last at the last meeting we talked about how the measure you fund is has a growing annual deficit, it's around 40 to 50 million a year every year for the next five years.

And I think I understand that the measure you fund legally rolls into the general fund.

Like I think that's for sure true, but like from a structural finance perspective, I guess I just want your opinion.

Don't you think the measure you shortfall should be considered as the contributing factor to the general fund deficit?

I mean, if we're consistently spending more in the measure you fund than we're collecting, isn't that baked into how we're modeling the general fund sustainability?

Or it might not be.

So we we model them together, the general and the measure you fund.

It's really uh, you know, it's been a council and city manager decision on uh with obviously a lot of input from the commission uh for what um programs are considered measure you funded programs.

Uh but when we're balancing the budget, we're looking at both of them combined.

Um so it's the same sort of dynamic.

When you're when you're sitting at uh as a council member, you have to decide, hey, um, you know, that we can balance the budget two ways.

We can raise revenue, we have some ability to do that, but it's limited because uh any sort of tax would need voter approval, and you can't charge a fee more than the cost of service.

So you can look at those revenue opportunities, or you're looking at service reductions.

And the question uh from a council member's perspective is always what services and who's gonna be impacted, what's the impact on the community?

Um they're less concerned about you know what uh source of funding it is, if it's in the general measure you fund, if that makes sense, right?

So they're saying, do I want to reduce police, do I want to reduce fire, do I want to reduce my parks programs, do I want to cut my homelessness uh services?

Those are the sorts of things they're looking at, uh, versus hey, it's this is you know fund number two four oh one versus fund number one zero zero one, they consider them together.

They they're more concerned about the impact on on people.

Uh member McGee.

Thank you.

Um thank you for even having the consideration to come to us and to pose for us to be a part of the solution the best that we can be.

So thank you.

You changed the trajectory of my question.

So a couple of things, right?

If it's modeling and you're modeling them together and they're trending, right?

And we know that if we're modeling up, like the deficit's gonna get wider and wider because we continually are not going to be bringing in enough to fund what is currently going on.

Two things, like we know that we can't raise you know the tax and do all that without the voter consent and that whole process.

Do we as a city, or do you propose in the future that that is going to be something that we're going to have to do because the gap continues widening, and even though we keep cutting, like it's still not catching up that shortfall.

And then in terms of us being um the best partners to the budget committee and and others that are going to have to consider um help me again.

What's the best way that we can inform?

Like, do you want us to come to you with our priority areas, like of all the things that could be cut, we want to make sure these things are sustained?

Or do you want to come back to us with dare I say what's on the cutting block or what is proposed or what could be potentially impacted, and then have us choose from there?

Like what's the best way?

And I'm asking two questions, so hopefully they're both clear.

I'm kind of my um so I think on the first question, you know, that's that's a decision for the that'll be a decision the council and ultimately the voters make because you know, we have this uh you know, this kind of suite of services we're providing right now.

Um we can't afford to do all of them within our current resources, and so um, you know, that council could go and the voters could say we want to maintain all of these services and we're willing to pay more taxes to do it.

Um, or they may say, no, we're not, we want to stop doing some things, and you need to you council need to come up with priorities of your own, and you know, do uh you're gonna have to stop doing certain things.

So those are that's really the the choice that's before council and then the voters if they go the revenue route.

Um I think as far as um getting your voice heard, I actually think the best thing to do is to pass or to discuss and maybe come forward with your priorities uh to maintain things on the before departments even develop their suite of reductions because then they can keep take that into account when they're looking at their options, and they may say, Oh, okay, well, you know, um uh pool hours or what or whatever they these things are that are funded by measure you or arts programs, uh, these are really important to the measure you commission, and they'll know that ahead of time uh before they even develop the reduction strategies.

And then just one more clarifying to that statement.

Um, with you coming to us asking for that feedback and us proposing and giving our priorities, is that something that's going to not you can't promise, right?

No promises, but will it actually translate to the people that are then having to then take our recommendations and make the decisions?

Yeah, so we'll we'll communicate it.

In terms of how you do that process, so that's informative.

We'll communicate all those to the department heads, and then they can take that into account when they develop their um their reduction strategies, and then you know, we'll also obviously the city manager will know your priorities as well.

And so when the new city manager is making decisions on what to include in the proposed budget, they'll have that information on your priorities.

Thank you.

Uh member Johnson.

Uh thank you, as everyone else said for coming tonight and taking the time.

My question perfectly does dovetails Commissioner McGee's question.

Um it seems like pretty clear that our impact is not gonna be advocating for what we should be spending more money on, but what we should be cutting less of, right?

And so I have kind of want uh clarification around that 15% reduction.

It sounds like it's the departments that have a lot of the authority of developing those strategies and coming up with what they could potentially reduce by 15%.

What other factors?

The only thing listed here is uh limiting to the extent possible service impact to residents.

Are there other factors for us to help advocate on behalf of uh programs and uh and then my secondary question is what kind of oversight and development of that?

I don't want to be um maybe uh I don't want to think ill of potential department heads, but you know, there might be a motivation to say I'm gonna reduce the only thing I can reduce is 15% of pool hours, knowing that no one's gonna want that, so therefore we're not gonna cut pool hours just as an example, for instance.

Yeah, how is that what's the process of overseeing the development of that 15% reduction?

Yeah, so that that's uh really the city manager um will oversee that.

And we, you know, if um that that's I I will say just my experience with my colleagues is that uh over the past two years, people have not taken that approach, which has been very positive.

I've been through budgets where people have um taken that approach, where it's hey, I want to put something forward that's so awful that no one will ever commit even um consider it the and then I can keep all everything I have, right?

Um that's that's not been my experience in the organization, but ultimately it's the city manager who will uh who will say no, this is not this is not a viable strategy.

You need to um you need to come up with other things, and you know, we'll obviously support the city manager on on the finance side on helping them do that.

Uh, but that's really uh the city manager really has that authority through the budget process to say, you know, what you're putting forward is ridiculous.

Um and I think uh your first question was more on the um can you Yeah, it's what kind of factors and metrics are used to consider in making those 15% reduction of recommendations beyond just minimizing, or is it just minimizing service?

Yeah, it's really um we want to have uh we want to have minimal service impacts and um you know the departments as part of their development of the strategies have to articulate what those impacts are.

Um and then like you've seen the past couple of years, we've tried to, because we get so many of the strategies, we try to somewhat tier them based on um based on severity in c in conversation with the departments as well, because they're they're the subject matter experts.

And you know, the example I always use is you know, Pete's department not spending out their office supplies budget.

Okay, that's a painless cut.

Uh closing a fire station, that's an extremely painful cut.

Great.

Thank you.

Uh member Cook.

Super helpful, thank you.

Uh Peter, I really appreciate it.

So I'm looking at the uh capital improvement program funding summary 2025 to 2030, and it says like 2.3 billion dollars in deferred maintenance, identified funding, 522 million, funding gap 1.8 billion, which is what we've been talking about.

And I'm trying to get like specific.

Like there's a hundred million dollars of transportation that's classified as unfunded capital needs.

So if the funding can't be obtained, if the asset can't be divested, if there's no commercial partnership to form, does the asset just not get repaired?

Does it just do the roads remain filled with potholes?

Like I'm trying to Yeah, could that's that's part of it, right?

So the um, you know, what uh now I'm gonna talk about public works where I'm gonna be way out of my depth.

But um, yeah, I mean, all the the roads have a pavement condition index.

And so the longer you wait to um to repave them and do the maintenance on them, the worse your your pavement condition index is going to be.

And what that means is you're gonna have worse roads.

You're gonna have more potholes.

Um, and uh, you know, it's gonna the city's gonna look worse and it's gonna be harder to get around in.

Um, but that's the that's the trade-off.

This might be really outside of your wheelhouse, so if it is so how how does the city determine that, hey, there's a pothole that needs to be filled in Del Paso Heights versus the Fab 40s, let's prioritize one shoot over another.

Like, what is the strategic framework that the city uses to allocate resources when there's so many competing priorities specifically for the for the potholes?

Um, we can relay that question over to public works for you because that is that is outside my wheelhouse.

Understood.

Thanks.

Okay.

I uh thanks for coming, Pete.

Uh I do have a couple questions, of course.

Um when we do this sort of broad sweep of 15%.

You know, I've always been in, I've been in like private uh industry long enough to see this happen, you know, at companies, they just say, okay, every department you're gonna cut, you know, some percent.

Uh generally it's it's pretty brutal and rough, right?

Like the the nitty-gritty that you would normally have during like a more calm period of like, okay, this is program is doing well, this department's doing well, this department maybe need some help, whatever, isn't gonna happen because it's just kind of like a rush.

Um and you as you mentioned, this has happened in the past two years, right?

And now we're doing it for a third.

So I guess the question is like when do we get out of this sort of trend?

And I know you mentioned this two-year um sort of like step forward.

It sounds like that's what council was for, or you wasn't they haven't decided yet, or what was the Yeah, so um it I I will say it is difficult on the organization to be in cut mode.

You're you're 100% right on that.

Um, and then one of the reasons we wanted to do a bigger cut than we needed is to really kind of flesh out some of those things that are easier to do and from those that are harder.

In the last couple of years we've been able to do some of the easier stuff and we've been able to have bring in a lot of one time revenue to kind of help delay having to make some of those harder decisions.

And so I I mean it kind of ends when either we as a city decide we're gonna make these these hard choices whether that's tax measure whether that's spending cuts um and stop really using one time or when we run out of one time savings to use to help cushion the blow and then you're kind of forced to make that decision.

So you know as far as the two year you know commit the committee liked um option two where we set a maximum deficit for the year after the the budget year but they didn't have a target in mind.

And so what they wanted us to do was come back to council with some options for them.

So this is what a this is what a 1% maximum budget deficit would look like 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% what does that translate into money?

So they're gonna have that conversation and we'll see uh what what the full council thinks.

And then on top of that when the departments come back with the the 15% of options to city council what do you in like European seeing council use to sort of determine I know we do rank them based off of like you know the priority one, two, three or four um but that is done by who exactly so the uh the rank again the rankings are not uh or the one two three and four the tiering uh that's not I wouldn't say that's scientific right so my my ver my interpretation of it too might be different than yours might be different than yours but they should be general guidelines.

No one should think the office supplies are worse than the closing the fire station right and that's come that's done centrally with the assistant city managers, the city manager, the department heads uh so we can't we come up with that.

You know as far as what will how we um how it kind of ha happens with council you know we publish the list we publish everything uh but but what will happen is the city manager as part of the proposed budget will make a decision of here are the um here are here's the reduction plan I'm proposing as city manager uh and then council will say you know I like all of it I like some of it but not other parts of it I like none of it and then they can they can choose um from the other options.

Sure.

And so what we would see then is like maximumly a 15% cut to any department right there would never be really more than that.

Has there ever been a situation where you know what everything from this department we actually do want to get rid of but we don't look further under that so I will say uh pub public works has brought because they've had some revenue opportunities they've brought in uh they'll each of the last two years they've brought in more than 15% um and that that also goes to what I was kind of saying about there's a good good culture where people aren't trying to like hoard uh hoard everything there they they volunteered that um if someone did have a full 15 that doesn't preclude the city manager from saying oh okay well you know you got rid of this all painlessly all of these other options are horrible do you have anything else you can bring to the table so it's not gonna stop uh the city manager from asking for more from from a department gotcha and then of these like 15% or whatever we'd end up cutting from departments um you know I as we've done it two years in the past and we still have this problem it's it's clear that there's like something we're uh systematically that we're we're bailing to account for right and so and I guess I would like to hear your opinion of what that is right because if we're cutting programs you would think okay then our cost going forward would be less right and our money our revenues coming in actually haven't decreased uh as far as I know that much but outside of like one time funding maybe um so maybe you can speak to like yeah so our our revenues uh continue to grow right our spending continues to grow faster and that's our issue and it's uh it's not one thing it's it's a bunch of things so um you know we expanded into new program areas primarily homelessness uh we were able to really stand up a lot of those shelters with a lot of state funding some whole person care funding um and you know that's grown to a 50 million dollar a year program all of those out outside fundings except for HAP which keeps um shrinking every year uh have gone away and so most of that's shifted over to the general fund.

Um so we've had rounds of labor increases, uh, we've had pro other program expansions, and you know, a lot of this was kind of papered over or was financed um you know from 2021 through 2024 with federal money, and that federal money is gone, and now we're left with this higher cost base and revenues that um are not matching it, and that that's the adjustment that we're making.

And so it's been uh, you know, what I've said would say is we've been chipping away at it.

Uh so even last February when we came forward with our budget forecast, um, you know, the fiscal year 27 number, I think was over 100 million dollars.

Uh but we were able to knock 40 million dollars off of that with the ongoing strategies that council adopted as part of this budget.

So it's it's been a process.

We're we're slowly making progress, um, but it it we're still in a situation where our expenses are are growing faster than our revenues.

I guess from uh my perspective, I'd be very curious to know underlying that what percent of the I guess I want to I want to know the ratio between our revenues growing and outside of like our programs expanding or new programs being initiali initialized or stood up.

Um how is that compared to labor rate costs increasing and like for example insurance premiums going up?

Because I want to make sure that you know it's actually basically our fault for creating too many programs versus more the the alternative perspective, which is uh labor costs and insurance are going up too fast, and like our revenue just can't keep up with that.

Yeah, I think you know, again, uh and we can kind of get get you some more information that um you know can can visualize some of these things.

But when I look at it super high level, I'm like, okay, well, now we're um at 40 ish million general fund for homelessness that didn't exist five years ago.

Uh so that's 40 of your 60 million dollar deficit.

Um, you know, we've given a few rounds of labor increases, and that's that really gets you there as far as what's you know, we're doing more stuff, especially homelessness, that's been a big big expansion, and then the price of everything has gone up.

Sure.

Okay, so if you could give like our I mean, maybe I'm asking too much, but like a rough estimate here of like l labor and insurance premium increase versus program expansion and uh like starting new programs.

Like, can you yeah?

I can't right now.

Okay, sure.

We can maybe eventually share perfectly.

Because I'll throw out numbers and they'll be wrong and that's no problem.

Excellent.

Um then I guess one last question I have is you know, as you mentioned, we we kind of want to start our process a little earlier.

And you know, you gave us um a schedule in your presentation.

I guess what do you think is the most um appropriate for how we can get in terms in terms of timing and like what should we as a as a committee prepare?

Like when should we have uh our recommendations to you in a you know timely manner?

So I would love it uh if it's not asking too much in at the October meeting, maybe to talk about priorities for like even at a very high level.

Um and the reason I say that is you know, we're gonna have our internal kickoff with all the departments uh next week, I think.

And so departments will that'll kind of start them working a little bit on it, but they'll really get going in earnest um kind of early winter in developing their plans, and so I'd love to give them the priorities before they start putting their plans together.

Then on that, um we obviously have some ongoing discussions and work around like the metrics that we're gonna be adding to like the quarterly plan.

We view that as sort of almost like instrumental in terms of giving you those priorities that we have.

So do we do we know like a timeline in terms of what that looks like or gonna look to your gonna phone a friend and ash?

Yeah, so we are in the process of working with departments to sort of determine the feasibility of incorporating these performance metrics into that programming update.

If you recall a month or two ago, we had sent out an inventory of all the performance measures.

There were over 700 that are tracked internally.

And so a few things have um changed just recently.

It's it's not gonna delay us super much, but maybe by uh a few weeks.

Uh number one is the council is having an off-site workshop tomorrow where they're gonna be talking about priorities and goal setting.

And so we want to avoid a scenario where we're doing sort of parallel efforts here where we're getting departments to compile all these performance metrics, get them to you, and at the same time figure out a framework to track progress towards these goals that council may be establishing tomorrow.

The other um issue is we are actually transferring responsibility for compiling this update from the budget office to the city manager's office, and so um that's gonna be me.

I'm gonna be responsible for that.

So in some ways, we'll kind of have a closer working relationship with you all in terms of making sure we can get you the information you're looking for.

Uh we just need to kind of account for that transition.

There's some knowledge transfer that that needs to happen, and so we're in the process of doing that right now.

Okay, and I guess the question would be in terms of like your expectation of your soft expectation of us to have that ready to.

I hope your hope.

That's a better better word than your hope to have this by October.

Um, what would what are we looking at in terms of timeline for us to get those metrics that we would need to do to do that sort of evaluation?

And again, might be an Ash question, but um, yeah.

Do we have like an estimation around what that would look like?

Are we still sort of unknown?

Still uh unknown.

I mean, definitely by the end of the year, but I you know, hopefully sooner.

Okay, yeah.

Because uh, of course, it would be great that we have data to back up our recommendations and sort of some figures that we can utilize to give you those recommendations because we don't want to just give vibes, we want to give like you know something a little bit more concrete.

Um, but uh in that case, we should probably as a committee talk about you know what that looks like in trying to bring something, if not October, then November.

Yeah, we meet November, not December, right?

No, wait, yeah.

Okay, I'm trying to well, I would say whenever you guys can, but the earlier the better, uh, because that'll allow departments to take it totally into consideration.

Sounds good.

Uh, member cook, did you have another comment?

Last comment.

So on these department cuts, 15% across the board, prioritized by department, city council, city manager makes the final call.

My read based on what you're saying is that the departments are voluntarily going to put forth budget reduction strategies that are ranked.

But like what I'm not sure about is not just the budget being balanced, but also ensuring that the most productive programs persists and continue to do the good work, while programs which are perhaps underperforming or not tracked, have like their funding questioned or eliminated in the spirit of like radical transparency.

So, for example, we did this metrics assessment, we found 20 programs funded by measure you, 19 million dollars approved budget, no published performance goals, no impact metrics, not even one.

So, how does the like how does the performance of the programs influence the prioritization of whether a program should remain, should have its funding increased or something in between, or is that just not the way?

Well, so I'll say a few things.

So, first, um the 15% is not voluntary, um, so that's mandatory, so every department needs to come up with with those strategies to total that.

Um, you know, there are discussion extensive discussions with the departments um and the city manager when we're reviewing each, we go strategy by strategy with each department.

Um, and you know, that uh there are questions about performance.

Why are you choosing this and not that?

Um, and you know, the other thing I'll say, uh, I think Ash had mentioned it a little or alluded to it.

Um, there are while there are performance metrics that we publish, there are very uh many more performance metrics that departments use to monitor their programs, and so you know they'll uh they they also use those when they're evaluating putting together their plan.

Um, and so you know the city manager will make a proposal, um, but then council has that ultimate decision, and um you know, council will make that decision based on what their priorities are.

Understood, thanks.

And then do we have any members of the public who wish to speak on this agenda item?

Thank you, Chair.

I have one speaker on this item, Mr.

Lambert Davis Measure U.

This is uh I think it was uh director Dickison said in city council about me, and I took this as a tremendous honor.

She actually said I was one of the most engaged people when it comes to measure you.

First thing I want to say is to uh Commissioner Cook is we need people like you to inquire about things because this this gentleman here, he does a good job with bringing graphs and surveys, and then that's where I come in.

And what I'm saying is when I hear labor costs, and we're researching it now.

So we I'm not coming here to get any answers from you.

We're researching it ourselves.

We want to find out how much money can be saved if people working remotely do not get a raise.

They're not losing a penny, but they shouldn't get a raise.

If they're not leaving home, they should be saving a lot of money unless they're mismanaging it.

And some of them have moved away from where they used to live, just like at the state when they got caught and they had to come back to work, they rebelled because they knew they had moved from where they were.

But that was good to hear that 15%.

Now I'm concerned because when I hear the city manager has the final say so, I'm a stickler for the city manager's report.

I go to city council meetings.

I want to hear that report because that report should tell commissions like you where the money's going.

They have too much power to oversee the 15%, but they don't give us the city manager's report.

That's a violation of the Brown Act.

Thank you for your comments.

Chair, I have no more speakers on this item.

Okay.

Um, there's nothing to vote on here, so we can just move on if I'm correct.

Okay, great.

Um, I think the next item is uh community outreach and engagement communication strategy, but that was supposed to be given by Marbella, and she is not present.

So are we gonna bump this one as well?

Is that the plan?

I don't have the list of uh members who are on this ad hoc committee.

But if any other members um want to discuss this item, you're welcome to, or we can just continue it to the next meeting.

Are there any members of the uh the community outreach ad hoc that would like to talk on this?

Or if not, we can always give an update at the end as well when the ad hoc sort of give their update if it's small, unless it requires discussion.

Oh, but there is well, if we move it, is it do you still yes?

If you decide to continue, we won't.

Um, yeah, I guess we'll skip this item then.

But I guess there is a public comment who wants to speak on this, so let's hear that at least, but we don't have to discuss internally.

So certainly.

Uh I saw I have one speaker slip on item six.

Uh Mr.

Lambert Davis.

I'm glad you let me speak on this because this is community outreach, and this is actually a good program.

Uh that's starting to bear fruit because I know some people.

This this uh community outreach, even though I don't see the person who's the director.

There's a reason why this place is empty, but to me, measure you is one of the most important commissions at City Hall.

And I'm not saying that because you're sitting here in front of me.

It's just that measure you brings in a lot of money, and a lot of the public, like me, it was my children who actually encouraged me to come tonight because I'm on a mission with our families, uh, cheesecake business that has gone viral in Southern California, and they literally begged me to come.

I like Monday night football to be candid, and uh they had to bribe me.

Uh, we're gonna take you to in and out and all the little good things, so I'm here.

But I did tell them that when they watch it, look at the audience.

I'll probably be the only one here, and that's because I thought when I went to a lot of measure you meetings, measure uh Mayor Steinberg had something.

Just think what the city would be like had it not passed measure you if you're going by the numbers in the red, and then when they combined it with the general fund, that's why the people are not here because that's not what they proposed to us.

They proposed to us they would be separate.

As a matter of fact, measure you was supposed to help underserved communities.

It wasn't supposed to come in and rescue uh mismanagement.

To me, as a business owner, when I hear structural death deficits, that's mismanagement.

My family would run me out of town if I had a structural deficit.

Thank you for your comments.

Uh, I have no more speaker slips on this item.

Okay, then we can continue.

Um, the next item is number seven.

Uh, Sacramento Measure U Community Advisory Commission 2025 Annual Report and 2026 Work Plan.

Uh, the primary goal of this is to establish that ad hoc.

We just basically destroyed, but in a new light to finalize this annual report.

And I think Ash uh was very nice and created essentially a draft that that group can follow.

It is attached to the agenda.

And there's like certain spots in that uh document that basically say fill this in and like what do you guys you know want to highlight here?

Um so we did have one person do it last year, but I think it's better to have maybe a couple people do it this year if possible.

Um so I guess I want to hear one if people were able to look at it and just sort of get a sense of like what it is we're looking for, and if there are anybody here who is interested in doing the highly necessary work to make this annual report, um which will include all the things that we care about, probably like if we're trying to give recommendations to Pete, this will probably contain a lot of that.

Um this is not due until November, if I'm right.

So ideally if if it could get approved in October, that would be best just in case.

I mean, as we get later into the year, it's harder to get a quorum as the holidays approach, things like that.

So ideally um you can get pretty close in October, but if you still need an extra month to do it in in November, we could do that.

So it really just kind of depends on if you do this ad hoc committee, how much progress are they able to make between now and then?

Yeah, one thing I think if I'm crazy, you can correct me, but I think last time we also had something similar where we approved the individual who was kind of managing it to make those last minute corrections and just forward it to you.

So like in October, we could even be like almost a conditional approval of like if we don't have quorum in November, then just like take care of it in a sense.

Um yeah, we could do that.

You're nodding.

Okay, cool.

All right.

Um that case, are there any questions about this and our obligations around it?

Uh, member McGee.

Yes, just reviewing it.

So um we're queuing up for and I know when I started there was a little bit of overlap and discussion on the dates, if I'm tracking correctly in my memory.

So it's saying through December 2025.

So we are now adjusting going forward for 2026, correct?

I'm looking at the draft and I'm looking at the dates.

I'm just trying to get clarification.

The we call it the annual report.

It's technically the annual report and work plan.

Right.

So the annual report is really kind of a summary of all your activities and accomplishments this year.

And then the work plan is like what do you want to get done next year?

So it's the 2025 annual report and 2026 work plan.

Does that answer your question?

Thank you.

We're combining the documents now into one to sort of simplify the process basically.

Okay.

Um I mean, I would love to be a part of the team that drafts this, and I would love for at least two other people to volunteer if they have the time.

Um yeah, that would be great because I would hate to have to write this myself.

But um member cook, go ahead.

I volunteer.

Okay, great.

Fantastic.

So we have Member Drowski and Member McGee both volunteered.

Is that I hear that right, Member McGee?

Anyone else?

Anyone?

Any other take?

Oh, and uh member Smith, you also volunteered.

Okay, cool.

And then Member Cook, you have your to speak.

The draft already exists, and the work run already exists.

So it's the ask to review the language, the draft and approve it and make edits as necessary.

Like what is the request?

Yeah, for sure.

So this is like almost like a copy of last year, and then sort of like with some few changes and like deletions.

So there are parts in here.

I think if we like search for like a bracket or something, it would be like insert cover letter addressing the city council that introduces and summarizes this report or whatever.

And we would we would go and fill those spots in.

Um it's mostly template.

Honestly, I'm not sure I like the template, but I'm not sure how much like we are allowed to change versus uh because it's a lot of words, and I'm not even sure like as a city council member.

If I receive this, it would be kind of like where do I even look for like what's important here?

So maybe we can reorder it to the extent that we're allowed to.

Um, I don't know.

Yeah, as long as it contains the minimally required language and I can work with you, or I should say sections.

Um, we can definitely have some flexibility in terms of the format and if you want to shorten things.

I was just gonna jump in and say, so what's what's in the template now is kind of all of that boilerplate required um content, like where you all want to come in is really highlighting your key accomplishments, what what you all think are the key accomplishments you have this year.

Um Pete mentioned the your priorities, so we kind of and we might do this as two separate agenda items at the next meeting.

So we might just have a standalone item where you would discuss your priorities for the following year, but we can also include those in the annual report as a section.

Um so that's another piece of it.

There is a section where um it involves reviewing the performance measures that we have provided to you.

So in the past, you know, just candidly the commission has used that as an opportunity to um inform the council about its level of um satisfaction with the with the type of uh performance measures that we have been able to provide.

And then again, your 2026 work plan, even though there's a draft in there, I think um, and maybe we can I can connect with this ad hoc committee.

I think it's just important to be really realistic because sometimes certain presentations and departments might slip through the cracks, and so um I talked with the chair about this um a few weeks ago.

So is one example.

I don't know if the commission realized we only identified departments that are funded by measure you above a million dollars.

Those are the only ones who presented to you.

And so there may be some other programs um that you're interested in hearing from other departments that are funded under a million dollars.

That's just one example where you may just want to double check and confirm like, yeah, we're good with not hearing from those departments, or no, we actually want to hear from those departments because we haven't.

So lots of little small um decisions, but I I think it it's reasonable to get done, at least get you know to a good point between now and um October 20th.

And one of those departments that we missed was the Department of Equity, or I forget the full name, but yes, the Office of Diversity and Equity.

Office of diversity and equity, so which I think a lot of people here probably care quite a bit about, so we should probably modify that in our like intention.

Uh I think that's one that's where I'd like some clarification.

Is the intent to like change the template, the look, like the way it's presented, or is there an opportunity via this smaller team to actually reframe, restructure, change the measure you recommendations?

Because for example, there's slides that say 2025, 2026 budget recommendation and list a bunch of them.

Are those locked in?

No, or can they be changed?

They can be changed.

Well, I'll just clarify those are recommendations that you all presented to council earlier this year.

So 2026 ones.

Uh just to clarify, we are currently in the budget year 2025-2026.

So that was the budget that you had that they adopted in June.

I guess it depends where you're looking in this doc.

Because we have like um, for example, our 2026 year schedule that was that is malleable.

So there are things to change and add.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, so I see the work plan for 2026.

I'm talking about like the 2025-2026 budget recommendations.

Are those locked in, finalized, or can those be those are the things that we already need.

City council, it's like supplemental documentation to show what we did.

I guess I'm trying to like what is the specific ask then if those are already finalized, the language is already complete, it's already done.

It seems like the scope of the request is to adjust update the formatting, the look and feel, but like the core budget recommendations for 2025-2026 are already finalized.

Is that statement correct?

That's correct, and it's best to think of those as part of the key accomplishments.

So that's the part where you're looking backwards and saying those are the recommendations that we issued earlier in the year.

But there is absolutely an opportunity, and and in fact, this is part of what Pete was asking for is for you all to think about your priorities for next year.

So that's that that would be like your 2026-2027 community priorities.

And that can be in this document.

Absolutely.

Yes.

I have a clarifying question.

And so tracking with this ad hoc, we currently have five members slated for the ad hoc.

Does that meet the requirement?

Yeah.

Yes.

You can have up to seven.

Up to seven, thank you.

Yeah.

So we have space for two more if if people want to join.

Um member Miguel, do you still have a hand up or you're good?

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, that being said, if anyone else wants to join, feel free to tag.

If not, then we I think we can move on because again, we have a uh unless there's like a there's no vote that needs to happen for establishing an ad hoc, right?

We just did essentially.

I always forget how this works.

I believe it's just up to the chair.

Which we're going to do.

Okay, cool.

Well, then another reminder is when we get close to having seven, always become a little bit uneasier and have to remind everyone not to talk to anyone else outside of those seventh, because then you create a serial meeting if you do get to seven.

I mean, probably not because then even if it's close to seven, if someone talks to someone else and then they talk to someone else, you create that serial meeting.

So just friendly reminder.

So just friendly reminder, I know everyone knows the rules.

Just don't break the Brown Act.

Is the summary there?

Okay, cool.

And then to clarify City Clerk's office, we have members Smith, McGee, Garovsky, Cook, and Chair George Off on this ad hoc for the 2025 work plan and 2026.

Or sorry, 2025 annual report and 2026 work plan.

Correct.

Excellent.

And then I have one more thing.

So per council rules of procedure.

Um the in your report is provided in a format established by the city clerk.

So that format that is in your staff report um is the format it should be in.

Okay, so we'll work with Ash then to make sure we comply with any of the city needs.

I think he's gonna be in touch with that group.

Cool.

Thank you for the reminder.

Uh then we do we have any um members of the public who wish to speak on this?

Yes, I do, Chair.

Uh Mr.

Lambert Davis.

Okay.

I heard some things just now that really are gonna help me.

First of all, um of the things that I learned long time ago, and I passed it on to my family and my grandchildren, everybody.

My uncle taught me long time ago that if you study too long, you're studying wrong.

And that that may sound peculiar, but it's true.

And as I listen tonight, uh there's a lot of uh studying too long.

For instance, uh, I thought I heard uh diversity, equity, and inclusion mentioned.

I don't know in what capacity, but there's a regime in this country that's eliminating that.

So I I don't think that's genuine to talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the budget, because I was one of the ones that used to go to race equity meetings and say, and no one else said it.

I I said there's resistance to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the city manager's office because they were supposed to take mandatory tests, and this is before Trump got here.

So that's disingenuous to even mention a budget about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

And when I heard uh Ash Rugani talk about the holidays, this is what I mean by studying too long.

Uh if it's it's my understanding that this group meets once a month.

So if it's once a month, it shouldn't be any problems just to get a quarrel if you're serious as a commission, even if it's uh November, once a month, December, once a month.

What you should do is handle this budget like you do your own budget at home, or else you would be out there homeless, running it like the city does, and the city manager's department to me is the one where the scrutiny should be.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Chair, I have no more speaker slips on this item.

Okay, we do have a hand from either Member Drofsky or Member Naveo.

It was me.

Um I know that we just talked about the on your report and the war plan, and my apologies if probably this and I guess in my end, it didn't register.

Peter just asked us for our priorities to be delivered to him, um, or at least adopted by this body by the next meeting.

So, how is that going to be processed or completed in addition to this other two elements?

Or is that something that this group that was put together is something that it's all gonna manage at all?

How is that gonna happen and what is the process and how us commissioners will have input on that?

You unmute.

So I think the best way to think about this is um that those priorities are already part of the annual report.

I think what Pete's asking for is us to just pull that out separately.

So when so he can give it to the department heads and they can have your priorities without having to comb through your longer document, which is gonna be the annual report.

So it's it will be one and the same.

I think we just want a separate copy to pull them out.

And so uh just as one example in your last meeting, you talked a little bit about your 2026 work plan.

Um that's still part of your annual report, but you had a separate discussion on it, and that um based on that discussion, that content is now in the template that's provided on your agenda tonight.

So um, yeah, there it'll be part of the annual report, but it can be worked on separately, if that makes sense.

Sorry, so the thing that Pete was asking for is like basically our recommendations for next school year, right?

Yes.

So that's gonna be included in this report in full.

Let me so there's kind of the historically the commission has had really two types of recommendations.

One is priorities.

So your priorities are like youth programs, homelessness services, like these things are really important.

We want to protect these programs.

We want to make sure these programs don't get cut, versus super specific like recommendations where you're in most of the time this is after the budget gets published, the proposed budget, the committee the commission will come back and say, okay, actually, um I think the commission did take a um a position on this.

Uh a couple years ago the city manager proposed cutting rut ride free RT, which is was a one million dollar contribution to allow youth in Sacramento to write public transit for free.

That was something that the commission didn't establish as a priority ahead of time because it didn't know that that was gonna be in the budget.

But then once the budget was proposed by the city manager, I think some members of the commission, if not the commission as a whole, said, Hey, hey, hey, we want to make sure this program is protected.

Uh plea we recommend that the city council not cut this program.

So I don't I don't know if that's helpful, but um I I think like if I was to add to this, uh it's in my opinion that like this 20 so what you're referring to here is like 2026 community priorities or priorities, right?

Um which doesn't necessarily have to be the same document that we would give to Pete, for example, which might have way more details around you know the metrics we've been looking at or what have you.

So although it may be similarly reflective of like what people care about here on this committee, like I don't know if it'll be the same document.

So I would because I assume we're gonna have to wait to like give Pete our suggestions until somewhat we've figured out like what those until we get back those metrics basically for each one of these programs.

At least for from my perspective, I can't evaluate programs effectively until that's gotten.

I I don't know how other people feel here, but um and so but we can say at the same time, like our priority would be to like ensure we have established metrics for all of our programs, right?

And so I think these are maybe two separate priorities in quotes.

But yeah.

I think that's a totally reasonable approach.

And yeah, I wouldn't I guess we weren't assuming necessarily that your priorities were gonna be pr very specific, but I was thinking they would be high level, but if you all want them to be super specific, um go for it.

That's really within your Yeah, I think we'll have multiple sort of levels of specificity.

Like in this document that we're putting together now, because um yeah, I don't see too much time for a discussion with this, it probably will be stay pretty high level.

Um whereas the thing that we work with Pete on, although it also is supposed to be g done in a very timely manner, we can like iterate with him on that, right?

We can give him a here's our first document.

You know, as we've discussed, we've had an ad hoc go into like the homelessness side of things, what uh however we decide to split up the work.

Um and that ad hoc has come back with some homeless discoveries of how we can improve as a city.

Here's another document.

Like there's no restriction to like the flow of communication with us and and I appreciate that clarification in that particular mo um, you know three different items.

What I'm more concerned is the process.

And if it comes to a pointing where we're not gonna be able to see it, those folks who are not part of that committee into the Thursday before we actually got to vote on it.

And that is the point that I want to make sure that I at least is address, just to ensure that one you're not bombarded with a lot of unknowns prior to this meeting, or that we have a proactive meeting.

So we all are comfortable and on the same page as we continue to move forward.

Because it seems that there's not a case right now.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah, I agree.

Uh this has been something we've always struggled with as a uh committee is like we can't meet collectively outside of this, and it's like so hard to make a document in this format, right?

Like to work on a document in this format.

I mean, uh it's just it's almost impossible.

Um so it's always been the case where like a minority of us goes and works on the document, comes back, we collectively give input on it, and then that's sort of like that same group maybe goes off and does it again and comes back.

And so we will have an opportunity to discuss this document that like this ad hoc that was just established.

We're gonna go write it, we'll bring it back on October that and you'll get a draft before the meeting.

Like I don't know how many days we can give it to you ahead of time, but we can.

And then you'll have time to grok it, come up with suggestions or changes that you would like, bring that to the October meeting.

We can still have one more iteration point where we factor in all that feedback, um, if that makes sense.

Is that sufficient?

Because I don't actually see a way to make it more whether or not and how it can be done, um, I completely would respect your process, but whether that is an interview that can be done in preparation, is whether that is a survey that can be provided um, you know, next week, so we're able to provide you with what you need.

So when you meet, you have it like guiding principle, uh light men in what everybody is uh looking at, and everybody can have access to them.

Um I just want to again want to make sure that whatever is being done is something that includes everybody's opinions or at least has some sort of cohesion.

So when it comes to making those determinations, we don't go back to the same point understanding priorities, uh principles or however you call it special directive, and this is how we're gonna work on things.

Um and for the annual uh the work plan, some sort of community aspect, I think will be um something that I would like to see, just for providing print uh input, but again, if there is a um a a window in which something um of such can be provided um for us to provide a little bit more input on that, I would appreciate and and that's what I'll make my point.

Yeah, awesome.

I mean, I I think that's super important.

We actually have in the past had a survey.

Um this has been, in my opinion, too high level of a survey.

Like it's so it's just like what department do you want to ensure keeps funding or gets funded?

And I think it's like almost uh yeah, it's kind of it's too much, like uh it's too up in the clouds and not like direct enough.

I would love for like everyone to go through all the programs we fund and sort of just rank them.

Be like, I like this one, I don't like this one, or I don't think this this maybe I like this one, but it's lower priority or what have you.

Um if that's something the commission is willing to do uh asynchronously, and like we can facilitate that through probably the same software.

I don't know if that would be something that you think is a good idea or I mean we're talking about tracking and then just providing that sort of or being able to make some sort of analysis based out of something.

I think this can be the vehicle in which we can prove that we can do that internally.

Um so I'll be open to that.

Cool.

Um and then also there is on the work plan currently a community engagement, but if there's something else you wanted to add, um happy to be good?

Okay.

Um okay, and then uh member cook, did you have a hand?

It's not the recommendation for fiscal year 25 is done.

Like that is my takeaway from this.

That is not up for debate.

It can't go back and like change the words, it's the done deal.

So really 2025, 2026.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah.

So like I think I'm trying to ascertain like what is the challenge and the challenge is being able to provide input into like the 2026 work plan and priorities to measure you.

Let me just join join the ad hoc committee, and that way you can have a seat at the table.

I mean, if that's what you want.

That's your more spots.

Yeah, food for thought.

Okay.

Um, assuming is there a public is this we already do the public speaker on this item?

No, we haven't.

We did?

Yes.

Oh wow.

Jeez.

Okay.

I thought we did seven.

This is still seven.

Yes.

Okay.

It's just a long long item.

All right.

Then the next item, um, assuming this is concluded, because we have an ad hoc now that has action.

And yeah.

Okay, we'll move on to number eight, which is the selecting vice chair.

Um, I guess last time we did this, um, I felt like it could have probably been run a little better.

And I want to give everybody the opportunity to sort of like if you are of interest in um, yeah, Mr.

Lambert, I think we already did number seven.

So you talked on that one.

We're gonna do eight now.

Yeah, cool.

Um basically I would like everyone who is has interest to be able to say so.

So last time we kind of did it in a way where it's like one person nominated, and we just like seconded that and like just voted on it immediately.

I think that was like kind of unfair to anyone else who maybe wanted to have a say at that.

Um so I think I would I want to do is kind of open it up to either interest, like I'm you can don't be embarrassed to say I'm interested, like it's to it's fine.

Like you can say you're interested, you don't have to have someone else nominate you, but if you have a nomination for someone else, that's also totally fine.

Um I just sort of want to open it up to anyone um who's willing to you know say they're say that they're interested or or similarly.

Uh member Goris, go ahead.

I'll just wait because um I was gonna nominate someone, so I want to just um see if anybody's interested first.

Sorry.

Uh member McGee.

I'm sorry, I have a clarifying question because I'm looking at this um on the calendar and it says for the remainder of the 2025 year.

So then what happens in January?

What is that process so that we know kind of clearly and transparently what the option is?

Jacob, I'm gonna let you take this one.

Uh there'll be another vote for a vice chair come January.

So it's a two-meeting vice chair opportunity.

And so clarifying question would it not carry over because it's a new year?

Like what is like historically, what is that process?

Correct.

In 2.40, it specifically states calendar in a calendar year, so each calendar year we vote on a new chair and vice chair.

Um despite if it was only for a couple of months or not.

Typically, if this if uh uh the commission were to lose a vice chair in say November and they have a December meeting, we would just hold off until January.

Um, but you have a a few meetings between then, so uh we figured we would bring this forward to just in case Chair George Off isn't able to make it to a meeting, so we have a a a vice chair to fill that role.

Thank you for clarifying.

Okay.

Uh yeah, member Goris, did you want to give your nomination?

Yes.

So um, Mr.

Chair, I want to make a recommendation or I want to make a motion to uh for vice chair um member Nikki Pascal.

Um I greatly appreciate the nomination.

I want to say I'm not able to attend the October meeting, so I don't want to be in the position of not being able to fulfill 50% of the duties.

Um appreciate the uh member Pascal, does that mean are you accepting the nomination or um not accepting the nomination?

If there's someone that could that can do both meetings, I think that would be uh better.

But if there's no one else, I'm happy to uh volunteer for the one I mean if no one's gonna do it, I'll just throw my head on the ring.

Why not?

It's pretty low risk.

Two meetings.

So big deal.

Uh and then member Drotsky or Nova, do you also have a yeah?

Um I would nominate uh Ms.

Emily uh to fulfill um this uh that role if she accepts it.

I mean I would accept it.

I don't I don't know what the dates are, but I'm sure I'll be here.

So we basically have between I mean I assume since the other two will be able to make both.

Are you sort of like taking back your nomination, Member Pascal?

Okay, cool.

Um so I guess we have Member Cook and uh Member Droski.

Um if you guys would like to just I know it's only for two months, it's kind of silly.

But like if you want to just state your bit um and just like sort of say, okay, this is why I'm interested in doing it, but um if not we can just like pick one and move forward.

Um I'm okay with either way.

Uh Emily, would you like to go first?

I mean, I don't really have a whole lot to say.

Um I mean I'm happy I'm happy to do it.

It's you know, just a couple oh look, here's the dates.

20th.

20th and 17th.

17th.

Yay.

You can do it.

Yep.

I won't be here on the 17th.

So just kidding.

All right, so I guess I'll make a motion to uh nominate member cook uh as vice chair for the two important months that we have ahead of us.

Uh and we have a second from member Smith.

Um let's do a roll call, I guess.

This is maybe more important.

Thank you, Chair.

Members, please unmute.

Sorry, Mghee.

Did you have a comment on this?

No, I was ready to vote.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

I'll now do the roll call vote.

Uh member McGee.

In agreement.

Member Smith.

I agree.

Member Salah.

Absolutely.

Uh is absent.

Uh member cook.

Yes.

Uh member Johnston.

Yes.

Member Goris.

So before I vote, I have a question.

He's the only one in the in the running, right?

He is the only one in the running.

So isn't wouldn't it be just by acclamation?

We don't have to do a vote.

Uh per parliamentary procedure, I do believe we have to do a vote.

I won't get abstained.

So nothing against Member Cook, but I'm gonna abstain.

Sorry.

I welcome the feedback.

Would love to hear why.

Uh honestly, I I don't really know you.

Like that's the reason why.

Sorry.

Continue.

Member Novello.

Oh, abstain.

Member Gorofsky?

Except.

Member Pascal.

Except.

Member Fry Lucas.

Member Rosa.

Except.

And Chair George Off.

Yes.

Thank you.

The motion passes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Congratulations for two months.

Big big shoes to fill.

Okay.

We'll move on then.

Unless we have any members of the public who wish to speak on number eight.

I have no speaker slips on this one.

That would have been a whoops before we did the vote.

Okay.

I guess we'll move on to the ad hoc updates.

First one is metrics ad hoc.

I can give the update for this one.

We did not meet as a group in between last meeting and now, but we have had a few like interactions with Pete.

Basically, we did forward the metrics that we sort of all approved, uh at least the straw man of from last meeting to him.

Um as we kind of heard now, it's in the works, and actually Ash is gonna be sort of like championing that.

I think there is still, I didn't mean to put you on the spot or anything, but um there is still some like internal deliberations, I guess, happening around it.

Um, and where we have the workshop tomorrow, it's sort of where that might be cleared or not.

Um but either way, since we're just asking for metrics that are already captured, it seems quite likely that we'll have this um somewhat soon to make recommendations on, which is honestly fantastic news for us because we have been asking for metrics for a long time, and it seems like we actually might finally get it in an organized format that we've all agreed on and easy to read format, which is our quarterly report.

Um that's the only update I have.

Um is there anyone else who oh, Member McGee, did you want to talk on this?

Or is it yes?

Um and I don't know if this is the format right now or in question and answer period or after we are done.

It just clarifying for tomorrow and what is proposed in terms of the additional meeting.

Um just gonna talk about our presence and if that's something that's needed from measure you.

I'm so sorry, I'm trying to follow your question.

Tomorrow's council workshop, is that yes.

And specifically what's gonna what's gonna happen.

Oh, I okay, okay.

Okay is that right, because we got the invite or the the prompting that it was occurring.

So I'm trying to see if it's something that I need to adjust my calendar to attend, like if you think it's worthwhile.

Do we need a physical presence there?

Like in past, we've had uh, you know, where we've been requested to attend or to listen in or to give feedback or give public comment.

So that's kind of what I'm asking.

I would definitely encourage attending.

I don't I don't want to um I I don't know exactly how the day's gonna go, to be honest with you.

Um as it relates specifically to the performance measures, really the issue that we have as a city is we're a large complex organization, and so there are a I'm guessing like a hundred different staff who are involved in compiling that measure you programming update.

And so what we're really hoping to do is it's a quarterly update.

Um and we kind of want to kick off the year right, meaning when we say, hey, this is what the new format's gonna be, we're gonna include performance measures.

We want to kind of have that be a consistent process throughout the remainder of the year.

If we start changing what we're asking for throughout the year, folks are gonna get confused, they're gonna complain.

It's it's just gonna create a lot of challenges and tension within the organization.

Um so long story short, we just kind of want to get through tomorrow and make sure there's no like because it is a it's a priority and goal setting workshop.

That's like within the realm of performance measurement and metrics and things like that.

So we just want to make sure that something specifically that would impact uh the city's performance measures does or doesn't come out of that workshop that we're just accounting for that.

So when we go out to the departments, the hundred um contacts that we have across departments that whatever it is that that we're asking for as it relates to updating metrics in this um quarterly measure you update that it's not inconsistent or it's not gonna change based on the outcome of tomorrow's meeting.

Um but yeah, in terms of you know, if if you are available, I I don't believe it's gonna be recorded.

So um it is one of those rare opportunities that if you if you if it's a topic you're interested in, I mean they are gonna be setting priorities for the city, so it you know it can affect you, your families, your friends, your neighbors.

So it is one of those rare opportunities that if you if you if it's a topic you're interested in I mean they are gonna be setting priorities for the city so it you know it can affect you your families your friends your neighbors um it it's it's the kind of dialogue and it's it's the kind of format um that is not it's not gonna be around a dais it's gonna be at the convention center I believe there's gonna be different like breakout tables and things like that so it's just gonna be more of a unconventional opportunity to kind of articulate a vision for the future by the city council and so the more there but there's also going to be opportunity for public input and public comments so if you know this is a topic that you're interested in you do have the time um and the ability to attend it it would be worth your while I think and we could just show up so we don't have to give you our prior attendance coming thank you and at any point throughout the day it's from 10 to 5 so even if you can't stay for the whole time if you just want to pop in for an hour or two and see what they're chatting about you know that's perfectly reasonable as well.

I will say um actually um nothing thank you.

Now we want to take all your chats this is being recorded.

I did want to mention um I think like I'm just gonna be very matter of fact there's a closed session agenda at 9 a.m.

Actually it was reported in the B the council is expected to appoint the next city manager tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.

So they would be potentially attending this workshop um that's about as much as I can say at this point it's actually about as much as I know at this point.

I just want to make sure I wasn't spilling the beans on anything but yeah.

So you know talking about the future of the city vision for the future all these things um that's just one other piece I wanted to mention.

Yeah there is gonna be a lot of talk at like they they have published the agenda for it if you guys haven't seen it but a lot of talk about the debt uh deficit I mean um and um their priorities they're trying to set for the city in order to resolve this and like what we care about so it's a lot of what we talk about here I think um I will definitely try to attend I do have work um like as most of us probably do but um maybe I can slip out for a couple hours or something uh member Johnston yeah this is under the ideas in questions which I realize I've been meaning to mention this and my mic is muted I've been meaning to mention this a few months ago and I keep forgetting that I took um director Pedro up on his offer to do a write along at the Department of Community um response and I just highly recommend it I did it like it was like three hours with Hezekiah and it was um you know it made it less theoretical about what the city's trying to do to accomplish and address the homelessness issue in Sacramento and provide services and so I I think it is a really valuable experience if anyone has three hours to reach out they're very very welcoming and appreciative of anybody um getting their eyes on what they actually do on the day-to-day basis.

Please share details of how we can set that up thank you for sharing that that's impactful.

I think I literally reached out to Director Pedro and then he connected me to Hezekiah um I'm not sure who the best I think you just email Director Pedro I don't have his email off the top of my head.

Thank you ash.

Yes yeah but they're they um yeah they they are very um this they do this a lot and I think I really appreciate people as engaged as we are in the city getting to see what they do I went to a site that they were cleaning up I went to I walked with some of the people on the ground talking to people in my neighborhood it was a really good experience.

Amazing uh member Pasco I just wanted to echo that I did the same uh a few months ago too and with the gap between the meetings I forgot to bring it up as well but it really it was a very worthwhile I think use of uh few hours and I really um you know regardless of what you think about the city's policies I really gained a lot of respect for the people that are doing the work and also um got to interact with some of the um police officers that are involved in the um some of the actions and like just hearing their perspective on um how things are going and uh was really eye-opening for me as well so uh member gorse just piggybacking um in addition to community response I've done the ride along with the the police department and the fire department um which I think we should do as well as commissioners just to we could get a perspective um as far as the work that's happening so just want to put that out there and I think Ash can help with that as well so yeah all the details for all the areas excellent um okay following the agenda basically the after this is a um community engagement and outreach ad hoc committee is there anyone from that committee who wants or from that ad hoc who wants to talk um about if anything happened last month um I think unfortunately with um commissioner um fella being under the weather and our schedules we weren't able to meet uh in the interim so I think we're gonna have to post pun on that one until the next time okay unless I miss something yeah there is still like that um presentation I guess the or oral report um I'm not sure what exactly was contained in that but um I guess we'll find out next meeting and then any commissioner comments or public matters come public comments and matters not on the agenda do we have any speakers for the oh for public comments yes I have one speaker Mr.

Okay.

Unless I miss something.

Yeah, there is still like that uh presentation, I guess, the or oral report.

Um I'm not sure what exactly is contained in that, but um I guess we'll find out next meeting.

And then any commissioner comments or public matters, come public comments and matters not on the agenda.

Do we have any speakers for the oh for public comments?

Yes, but we have one speaker, Mr.

Lambert Davis.

Uh the lady, the young lady who was there, I asked her why was she here, and she told me she was a political science student, and that's what I'm talking about.

The youth are studying you.

She actually was here studying you for some course.

And as a person who graduated from a university back in the 70s, I understood it took me back when she said political science because a lot of my friends went on to be lawyers.

And so when I come down here, this has nothing to do with ego.

I'm trying to get an understanding on Sacramento's fiscal responsibility.

I grew up here from kindergarten all the way to Grand High School.

So I'm a native, and I truly believe, and I've said this in city council.

I truly believe there are some people that are trying to ruin Sacramento financially.

It's like a game.

The only problem is some people like me don't want to play that game.

We want to see this city in the black.

You know, I have grandchildren here.

And uh to speak of uh solid financial moves, uh, it was the millennials that I talk about.

It was a group of them that approached me during the pandemic, and they said we can we can save your business because they were talking about DoorDash and they were impressed with us.

And I said the reason why I'm not impressed with DoorDash is because I'm a baby boomer.

We were out here before DoorDash, but we're impressed because that's your standard.

And they they saved us.

Now they've taken us to another level through social media.

I played the song in here of my granddaughter.

That song has gone crazy, and they they worked on me for a long time, but they got my attention, and we are now gonna release our mother's pumpkin cheesecake and carrot cake in the deep south, which is Southern California.

Thank you for your comments.

Uh Chair, I have no more speakers.

Okay, then in that case we are adjourned.

Oh, should all be like,