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Atwater workshop focuses on shoring up reserves, Measure B oversight and options for local fire and police staffing
Summary
Atwater council and residents spent the workshop weighing higher general‑fund and Measure B reserves, criticizing some Measure B expenditures, and asking staff to explore in‑house fire personnel, community service officers and enhanced oversight of Measure B spending.
Atwater’s strategic planning workshop on Saturday centered on finance and public safety as residents and council pushed staff to strengthen fiscal cushions and ensure Measure B money is used as intended.
City Manager Chris opened the session by asking participants to update the city’s five‑year strategic plan and then turned to a review of the city’s revenue mix and the Measure B public safety transaction and use tax passed in 2022. Finance Director Anna Nicholas summarized that the city’s largest discretionary revenues are property and sales taxes, with enterprise funds (water, sewer, garbage) restricted to their own purposes. She said the Measure B revenue is deposited into a special account and may be spent only on public‑safety uses spelled out in municipal code section 3.45.
The meeting’s clearest point of contention was whether the city should raise its reserve policy. Staff noted the formal reserve policy requires 10% of the general fund but that the council currently maintains higher cushions; council and residents discussed raising the target to 25% to provide a larger ‘rainy day’ fund. Chris said the projected FY25/26 fund balance could be roughly $15 million and that recent budgeting work had reduced the structural deficit from roughly $2 million to about $350,000 in the proposed budget.
Residents at the workshop urged that Measure B dollars be used to hire more officers and support front‑line public safety. One resident said Measure B had been used for items they considered nonpublic‑safety (example items cited included a public safety master plan and department flooring), and called for stronger oversight so the fund is not treated as a “slush fund.” Several speakers recommended quarterly reporting or a template memo from the Measure B oversight committee so the council could review whether expenses align with the adopted public safety expenditure plan.
On staffing and service delivery, participants and staff discussed two cost‑management options: exploring a return to in‑house fire personnel (instead of the enhanced CalFire agreement, which staff said has a projected FY25/26 contract level near $6 million and an annual 5% escalator) and creating or expanding lower‑cost public safety positions such as community service officers (CSOs), cadet/explorer pathways, and volunteer/reserve programs. Council asked staff to investigate both the comparative costs and service impacts of those approaches.
On a budgetary decision discussed at the meeting, staff reported they will move the one‑time $634,000 payoff for a Type 1 fire engine from Measure B to the general fund in the proposed FY25/26 budget to preserve Measure B fund balance for future public‑safety policy decisions. That change was described as a staff recommendation in the proposed budget; no final council vote on the FY25/26 budget was recorded in the workshop transcript.
What happens next: staff said they will type up the sticky‑note priorities from the workshop and draft an updated strategic plan for council review in June or July, and to return with more detailed cost estimates for items council directed staff to explore (in‑house fire, CSOs, reserve policy changes and Measure B oversight modifications).
