Finance staff gives high‑level general‑fund budget update; enterprise funds and CIP to follow

City finance staff provided a high‑level overview of the proposed general‑fund budget and described department‑level changes and one-time items to be addressed in upcoming meetings.

Staff said the presentation covered city‑hall, public safety, public services and community development departmental budgets and that the overview was preliminary: enterprise funds and the capital improvement program will be presented at a subsequent meeting. Finance staff noted an accounting change to reflect unfunded pension (CalPERS) liabilities in the budget rather than just the balance sheet; that change expanded budgeted retirement liabilities even though staff said payments had occurred previously from reserves.

Staff also noted increases in salary and benefit costs related to merit and cost‑of‑living adjustments and several departmental requests: police and city‑hall budgets showed limited changes; streets requested additional funding for sidewalk repair, weed abatement, changeable message boards and traffic wireless upgrades; community development requested an engineering technician inspector and a building inspector/code‑enforcement position (the latter partially charged to streets); parks and recreation requested funding for year‑round programming, maintenance equipment and special‑event cost increases; and technology requested a package of upgrades including a new agenda‑management system, website work for ADA compliance, camera/NVR replacement and server replacements for aging infrastructure.

Staff said the city currently has about four months of reserves on hand and that they will return with enterprise fund and CIP detail. The presentation did not request final adoption; staff said the materials were for council review and to guide further budget discussions.