Council hears limits on PEG and child-safety funds; staff says budget items removed can’t be covered

Hewitt — City staff told the City Council on Aug. 4 that two restricted revenue accounts — PEG (public, educational and governmental) cable franchise funds and child-safety funds — must be kept in separate accounts and may be spent only for narrowly defined purposes, and therefore cannot be used to replace items recently removed from the proposed fiscal 2025–26 budget.

Assistant City Manager Jim Devlin summarized the rules in a short presentation and repeated multiple times the legal constraints on allowable uses. “They can’t be used for any operational cost of the PEG channel,” Devlin said, and added that PEG revenues are limited to capital costs for PEG facilities, equipment and channel capacity. He described permitted purchases as “video production and streaming equipment,” “computer technology, studios, vans” and similar production items and said salaries, training, travel, rent and hiring a private company to run programming are not allowed.

Devlin explained child-safety funds are collected from certain citation and conviction revenues and are governed by state law. He said those funds “must be used for school crossing guard program[s] if the municipality operates a school crossing guard program” and otherwise may be used only for programs designed to enhance child safety, health or nutrition, such as child-abuse prevention, youth diversion or drug and alcohol prevention programs.

Nut graf: The presentation clarifies what the council may fund from two segregated accounts that appear on the city’s monthly financial reports. Council members had asked whether those restricted accounts could be tapped to restore positions or other operational items cut from the proposed budget; staff said they cannot.

In the discussion, council members asked whether PEG purchases could cover closed-captioning or remote meeting broadcasts. Devlin said many streaming platforms (he cited YouTube, which the city uses) include built-in closed-captioning and that PEG funds can be used for portable camera and streaming equipment to broadcast from alternate locations. He noted that Hewitt currently streams council meetings via YouTube rather than through a cable provider’s PEG channel.

On child-safety funds, Devlin said the revenue source is conviction/citation revenue tied to specified transportation and education code provisions and that the city may use the money for child-safety programs but not to cover unrelated line items removed from the proposed budget. He said the funds are collected by the municipal court and deposited into a separate account, and staff is exploring possible programs such as a child-safety seat program.

Ending: Council members thanked staff for the clarification. No formal action was taken; staff recommended continuing to track those special revenues separately and to use them only for legally permissible programs as they explore child-safety program options.