The Stockton City Council held a special budget study session on June 5, 2025, from 2:15 PM to 4:50 PM to continue reviewing the Fiscal Year 2025-26 Annual Budget, Fee Schedule, and Capital Improvement Plan. The meeting focused on addressing a $15 million general fund deficit through reductions and reallocations. Council heard a detailed presentation from the Office of Violence Prevention, debated departmental budget requests, and gave staff direction for a balanced budget to be adopted on June 24, 2025.
Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call this budget study session, our second budget study session, uh, to order. Uh let's go ahead with roll call. Councilmember. Present. Councilmember Enriquez. Present. Councilmember Ponce is absent. Councilmember Padilla? Present. Councilmember Via Padua. President. Vice Mayor Lee. Present. Mayor Fugazi. Present. We have a quorum. Okay. So I would like to take things out of order today. But if we have a general public comment, I will go ahead and entertain the general public comment first. Mary Elizabeth. Hi, Mary Elizabeth. I live here in uh central Stockton. And I am served by Cal Water. And so I uh noticed on the slides, you know, that I think 16 to 19% of the revenue comes from utility taxes. And I want to make sure you know that uh you're all aware, and maybe something that you could ask for is a breakdown on uh which utilities uh you're getting those that six percent and I know you know uh there was an overage uh last year because of the increase in utilities related to the uh heat wave that we had, and so when we have more uh heat waves, people have to use their electricity electricity more to try to stay cool, and so they're paying on top of that an extra six percent on that extra, and so the city of Stockton uh provides uh wastewater, storm water services throughout the city, but only water services in the north of uh the town and in the south of the town. The middle part, the older part of the town is served by cow water that's been here uh over a hundred years, and uh cow water uh for some reason is the utility that uh people are paying uh extra six percent. If you are provided water, sewer or wastewater by the city of Stockton, you're not paying six percent utility tax. And so, you know, there was an issue that came up in regards to the uh water hydrants and uh the fire, and you know, a comment made well we don't get any money, you know, from Cal Water on that, and uh there's all kinds of complicated uh California PUC uh hearing uh meetings that I hope that the city might get more involved in uh to represent the people in uh the central part of town. But that six percent uh is uh significant amount of money when you uh count it over. And if you look at where we have disadvantaged communities, many, many, many of those disadvantaged communities are located within the Cal Water Service area, and so I'd like you know, at least some point, you know, that the city could take a look at those utility taxes and what they're paying for and who's paying for them. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Okay, wonderful. Um so we are going to move things out of order slightly, only because I want to make sure uh that we get our the item we need to vote on done, and of course I don't have uh my agenda sitting in front of me, but just give me five seconds and I will it is 3.1. It's 3.1. 3.1. Okay. Uh so we're gonna go ahead then and move forward with item uh 3.1, which is to approve a contract uh with Peckham and McKinney. I'm going off the top of my head for hiring of a CFO. Uh a FC okay. Okay, yeah, administrative services department recruitment through Peckham and McKenney. It just came to me. Hello, Rosemary Reeves, Director of Human Resources. Um we did initiate a formal RFP to recruit for the six vacancies in ASD, which is a CFO, two ACFOs, budget officer, assistant budget officer, and procure procurement manager. We did get nine responses. Um we did have a group of um representatives from the HR department that did review all of the um submissions for the recruitment, and then we did uh select Peckham and McKenney. Okay. Are there any questions from council on this contract? Any public comment?