Albany adopts biennial budget and master fee updates; council approves several related resolutions

The Albany City Council adopted its biannual operating budget for fiscal years 2025'026 and 2026'027 and approved updates to the master fee schedule during the June 2 meeting.

Finance Director Raina Schwartz presented the proposed two-year operating budget and described the process used to prepare the numbers, saying staff aligned revenues with more recent experience and made conservative assumptions about continued weak sales-tax growth while recognizing continued property-tax growth. Schwartz told the council that labor and pension costs were the largest upward pressures; the city expects a required CalPERS payment increase that will push pension-related costs higher over the next several years.

The council also heard a presentation from Finance Manager Cassie Murphy on the proposed changes to the master fee schedule for FY2025'026. Murphy said staff used the Bay Area consumer-price index (CPI) of 2.76% as the base inflator for many fees and that several departments updated staffing-cost lines or completed fee studies (notably Recreation and Community Services) to better align charges with operational costs. The proposed schedule was posted in advance and staff said it complies with required public-notice rules.

On staffing, Schwartz summarized the city's response to recent state legislation (AB 2561) requiring annual public reporting on vacancies and recruitment. The city reported 118.3 FTE positions citywide with eight currently vacant and three positions held unfunded in the FY25'026 budget; no represented bargaining unit had a vacancy rate above 20 percent, Schwartz said.

The council approved multiple resolutions related to the budget process. During the meeting a council member moved to approve a package of six budget-related resolutions (as listed in the official record); the motion was seconded and carried by roll call. Staff described those resolutions as the formal adoption of the operating budgets for FY25'026 and FY26'027, annual tax-rate settings related to a pension property-tax override, approval of parcel-tax rates for library and other measures at the maximum allowable for FY25'026 (with the two library measures held at their current rates), adoption of the annual appropriations limit and an investment policy reauthorization.

Finance staff said the city will continue to monitor FY26 revenues and expenditures and will return with any necessary amendments for FY27; Schwartz said the FY27 projection in staff's scenario work shows an emerging imbalance that will be addressed during the first-year review of the second-year budget.

Why it matters: The council's actions set the revenue and expenditure framework for city operations for the next two…