National City council approves package of budget additions with targeted amendments

National City’s City Council voted to add a set of staffing and program items to the proposed 2025–26 budget on a motion that included several late amendments, the council said at a special meeting on issues raised at last week’s marathon budget workshop.

The council approved a package of mostly ongoing staffing requests and several one-time investments, but trimmed one custodian position from the original request and delayed purchases of some information-technology and radio equipment for later review. Council members also agreed to place a $1,000,000 “city revitalization” seed fund in the economic contingency reserve for future projects rather than charging it to the general fund.

Why it matters: The city presented a proposed general-fund budget with total revenues of about $72.8 million and projected expenditures near $81.0 million, producing a projected general-fund deficit of roughly $8.2 million for the coming fiscal year. The items the council approved are additions to that proposed budget; staff estimated the items discussed at the meeting would add roughly $1.7 million in new costs citywide and about $1.3 million initially to the general fund if all were included. Council members repeatedly emphasized the city’s multi-million-dollar projected shortfall and debated whether to use reserve balances to fund new positions and projects now or to defer until midyear.

Most important actions and details

- Council authorization: The council approved staff’s package of additional staffing and program items (as presented to the council) with the following amendments agreed on the dais: reduce the number of new custodial hires from four to three; reduce the number of community resource/community service officer (CSO) hires in the police department from two to one; keep the requested recreation-center supervisor hires but stagger implementation and revisit at midyear as needed; and move the proposed city revitalization seed fund out of the general…