Portola Valley emergency committee approves edited FY budget, shifts radio and sandbag costs to town budget

The Portola Valley Emergency Preparedness Committee on May 7 voted unanimously to approve an edited Fiscal Year budget and to demarcate several line items as town responsibilities rather than committee expenditures.

The committee chair led the discussion, saying hard copies of an updated budget were distributed because Brown Act timing prevented electronic circulation. Committee members debated whether items such as the AM1680 streaming service, encryption, radio upkeep and sand for sandbags should be accounted for in the town operating budget or in the committee’s own allocation.

"The budget's mainly a tool. It all comes out of the same fund. It all comes out of the general fund," Craig Taylor, the town liaison and mayor, told the committee as he described how committees should identify needs for council consideration. The committee agreed to a motion to "bucketize" (demarcate) items into committee (C) or town (T) responsibilities and amended the motion to specify items 1–4 and sand for sandbags be recommended to the town budget.

Committee member Dale pressed that sandbag costs had been charged to the EPC budget since 2023. "I'm actually shocked... this has never been charged here, and I see that it's been charged since 2023," Dale said, prompting members to seek clarification from staff about how the town’s accounting had assigned the expense.

The chair explained the process that follows: the committee’s recommendations go to the town council and mayor for line-item review and final approval. After discussion on whether certain recurring items better fit in an information-technology or public-works account, members voted unanimously to move items 1–4 and sand-for-sandbags into the town operating budget while keeping smaller outreach items in the EPC budget.

Separately, the committee adjusted a community outreach line item for printing, distribution and promotion from $200 to $600 to reflect modest poster and table-material costs for events. The committee then voted unanimously to approve the edited budget; the chair said she will generate the revised Excel file and submit it to the town manager and mayor for the next step in the town’s budget process.

The vote and the demarcation are recommendations to the council, not final appropriations. The committee noted some costs (for example, larger equipment such as a portable jackery battery) would remain a council-level procurement decision. The committee closed the budget item and moved on to other agenda business.