Council reviews FY2025–26 budget proposal, 5‑year CIP and fee changes; public hearing set for June 11

City finance staff presented a proposed FY2025–26 operating budget, a five‑year capital improvement program (FY2026–30) and adjustments to the master fee schedule at a May 14 workshop. Council directed staff to correct fee schedule highlighting and return with a final proposal at a public hearing scheduled for June 11, 2025.

Finance Supervisor Britney Neworfer and staff member Steve outlined key budget assumptions: an estimated 2% uptick in property tax revenue, a 3% rise in sales tax, and a projected 7.6% increase in the city’s transient occupancy tax (TOT) compared with the prior year. Expenditure pressures cited include higher utility and fuel costs, an automatic 3% escalation on the fire services contract effective October 2025, and a CalPERS employer rate increase projected at 15.2% (with a potential 5% savings if the city prepays contributions).

The proposed personnel changes include replacing the finance supervisor with a finance manager for general administration, adding a finance supervisor and operations supervisor for the Miners Foundry enterprise, creating a lead fuels fire mitigation technician in OES and deleting the division fire chief position in the fire department. Staff also proposed CIP projects such as dark‑skies compliance, a multimodal transportation safety program, Miners Foundry rehabilitation, Pioneer Park workforce housing allocations (including $100,000 of ARPA funds proposed for FY2026), water filtration/tank projects and deferred capital maintenance items.

Councilors raised several questions about fee packet display errors; staff acknowledged mismatches in highlighting color and proposed rates for some entries and agreed to correct and return the packet at the June 11 hearing. Council also asked about sales tax estimates and staff said the city uses a third‑party consultant (HDL) but budgets conservatively below consultant projections and will update the budget if estimates change before adoption.

"We expect all of those increases based off of our sales tax consultant and actuals," Britney said during the presentation, while staff noted they typically budget conservatively to avoid overstatement. Council directed staff to finalize fee corrections, refine revenue estimates as updated consultant reports arrive, and return for adoption on June 11.

No formal vote on budget adoption was taken at the workshop; the public hearing and adoption are scheduled June 11, 2025.