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Grants Pass staff outline budget with 12 new public‑safety positions; council keeps 25% reserve as target
Summary
City staff proposed including 12 new public‑safety FTE (six police, six firefighters) and several reclassifications in the FY27 budget, plus a new IT replacement reserve and other capital asks; council instructed staff to return with more detail and agreed to a revised financial policy draft with a 25% general‑fund target noted as the council goal.
City staff presented a draft FY27 budget framework and a package of personnel and capital changes at a Grants Pass budget workshop, saying the proposals reflect service priorities while exposing a projected decline in the general‑fund reserve if new spending proceeds without new revenues.
The presentation opened with a staff overview from Erin, who told the City Council the most consequential item is a request to include 12 additional full‑time equivalents in the proposed budget — six new firefighters and six new police officers that the council previously authorized — as well as several position reclassifications and transfers of program costs between departments.
Among staff’s recommendations: reallocate the cost of a community‑service officer (CSO) from downtown development into the Police Department budget (staff said this is an accounting reallocation, not a change in level of service); reclassify a vacant engineering tech to an engineering supervisor (+~$20,000/year) to bring some contracted work in‑house; add one facilities maintenance FTE (charged to police and fire budgets) to handle building upkeep and reduce sworn staff performing maintenance (estimated +$112,000/year); and convert an urban‑forester 0.5 FTE split to a full‑time urban forester/trail coordinator (+$54,000 to the general fund) to manage the new Dollar Mountain trail system and a recent grant for tree inventory.
Finance director JC walked council through the fund‑level math and said police and fire together require general‑fund support and that, under current revenue and staffing assumptions (including the new public‑safety hires), the budget would move the city’s modeled target fund balance toward about 18.5% unless other adjustments are made. JC proposed a rewritten set of financial management policies (the “pink” draft) that adds detail on reserves by fund and best practices for budgeting, capital planning and debt.
Council debate centered on how to treat the fund‑balance goal. Several councilors said they prefer to retain the existing 25% general‑fund reserve as the council’s policy target while acknowledging that the staff‑balanced budget might show a lower percentage for FY27 because the budget must assume full staffing and full expenditure authority. After extended discussion staff were directed to bring the revised pink policy forward to the budget process with clear language (an asterisk and explanatory note) stating the council’s 25% reserve goal while documenting that the staff‑balanced budget will be presented per state budget rules and that council will monitor and act if the balance trend moves materially lower.
Other items: staff asked to start an IT‑equipment replacement reserve (initial LB contribution of $357,000) so municipal computer/enterprise replacements can be planned on a smoothing schedule rather than as one‑time spikes; to contribute $150,000 toward fire life‑packs and $50,000 toward demolition of the River Vista house in Reinhardt Park; and to reallocate unused URA funds (for a stalled “business innovation hub” pot) back into URA priorities. Council asked staff to provide organizational charts, cumulative fund‑impact summaries, and service‑level descriptions to aid decision making.
Council also discussed downtown presence and parking enforcement after Councilor Rob cited a multi‑year decline in parking fines and said business owners feel enforcement is thinner. The police chief and staff said the CSO reallocation is accounting only, reaffirmed downtown enforcement activity by multiple units (parking enforcement officers, CSOs, cadets, patrol) and welcomed a focused workshop on downtown service levels.
On procedure, council gave guidance to staff to refine the budget and return to the budget committee and upcoming council meetings with clearer fund‑level impacts, requested quarterly fund‑balance monitoring be highlighted in future workshops, and asked staff to scope the IT reserve and capital projects with the more detailed materials requested by councilors.
What’s next: staff will prepare the balanced FY27 budget materials required by state law and return with the revised financial policies (pink draft with explanatory notation), the requested organizational charts and cumulative fund impacts, and supplemental detail for the Lands & Buildings capital projects the council reviewed.
