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Subcommittee discusses forming community working group to advise on budget deficit
Summary
Santa Rosa staff proposed creating an ad hoc working group to advise the city manager on closing the multi-year budget gap. Committee members favored transparency and community representation but flagged Brown Act and logistical constraints.
On April 22 the Long Term Financial Policy and Audit Subcommittee discussed a staff proposal to form an ad hoc budget-deficit working group to advise the city manager and help shape recommendations for the 2026–27 budget.
A staff member described the proposed working group as an ad hoc, short-term body modeled loosely on Pleasanton’s community-based budget committee. The staff member said the group would include community representatives and union members and would aim to provide transparency, community input and recommendations that could inform the city manager’s budget development. “The idea behind it will be to have community involvement. It goes along with our transparency,” the staff member said.
Committee members broadly supported the concept but raised logistical and legal questions. The city attorney noted Brown Act constraints for council-created bodies and recommended greater flexibility if the group were established by the city manager as an advisory working group rather than a formal council committee. “If it's a working group that the city manager is creating…we have more leeway to be able to do that. When you have [a] Brown Act committee, you have all the Brown Act restrictions,” the city attorney said.
Members discussed possible size and composition. Several members said a group in the low-to-mid teens could be workable and stressed the value of recruiting members who can carry information back to constituencies. Member Greg said the goals should include educating the broader public about trade-offs and creating advocates who can explain budget choices in neighborhoods and stakeholder networks. Members and staff also discussed timing: staff suggested starting work in July with a short series of meetings through the budget-development period and combining working-group meetings with public town halls as needed.
No formal action to create the group was taken; staff said they will develop a more structured recommendation for the subcommittee that includes options on whether the body would be a Brown Act committee or a city-manager-appointed working group, suggested size and membership composition, and logistical details such as meeting format and anticipated meeting frequency.
Ending: Staff will return with a proposed structure and legal options to the subcommittee so the council can decide whether to adopt a working group or a Brown Act committee model ahead of the FY2026–27 budget process.
