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Caldwell budget workshop highlights admin reallocations, police staffing debate and $25M sewer lift-station plan
Summary
Council and staff spent a day reviewing the FY27 draft budget, where staff outlined administrative reallocation and fee changes, council pressed for police staffing while raising alarms about a proposed permanent $500,000 shift from Streets funding, and public works previewed a staged $25 million Lincoln lift station project.
Caldwell’s budget workshop on July 1 opened with staff detailing several substantive revisions to the FY27 draft budget, including a job-title change and internal reallocation of administrative costs that shift the distribution of revenues and charges across funds.
Raymond, speaking for staff, said the city administrator job title was reclassified to “chief of staff” and that adjusting the hourly rate reduced the position’s cost by roughly $50,000. He also described a broad admin-allocation adjustment that charges internal services to fee-funded departments (fire prevention, mapping, engineering, planning and zoning) so that those fees better reflect the true cost of service. “It’s a dollar for dollar, so it’s not something that we’re making money on,” Raymond said, describing the internal transfer mechanics.
The changes free up sales-tax revenue in the general fund that staff propose to use for public-safety costs instead of relying on building fees, staff told council. At the same time the budget recognizes large enterprise-fee updates: staff flagged a roughly $10 million increase in projected wastewater connection revenues and about $7 million in water connection revenue, figures attributed to updated connection-fee schedules.
A central political point of the workshop was how to balance new and shifted spending with public-safety staffing needs. Councilmembers repeatedly pressed staff about workman’s-comp increases and rising personnel costs. Several members said public safety—specifically adding police officers—should be the top priority. That view collided with a separate set of staffing requests from fire and other departments, and with the mayor’s administration proposals for new positions such as the chief-of-staff role.
One contentious item raised midworkshop: a proposal under discussion to reassign about $500,000 per year from the Streets fund to police and fire. Streets staff warned that a permanent, continuing cut at that level would sharply reduce overlays, sidewalk rehabilitation and other maintenance normally funded from that account. “If it’s a permanent $500,000 reduction…that’s a whole other discussion,” a streets official told council, adding that the street fund balance would be strained by ongoing reductions.
Staff emphasized next steps: deeper, department-level cost and FTE histories will be supplied to council, fee workshops for enterprise fees will continue (public works scheduled for July 9), and staff will return with more precise estimates of how position additions would affect operating budgets and long-term fund balances.
The workshop closed with staff scheduling follow-ups; no formal votes were taken during the session.
