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Council weighs restoring second mental‑health response team after budget shifts
Summary
Staff told the council a single mental‑health responder unit costs about $250,000; councilors debated restoring a second team after staff identified additional revenue from PWC projections, and asked whether vehicles could be sourced from incoming fleet replacements.
Councilors raised concerns that cuts in the balancing worksheet would reduce the Office of Community Safety’s mental‑health response capacity from two units to one. Assistant City Manager (Speaker 6) told the council that the manager’s recommendation had included two units — “Each of those units cost about 250,000 each” — but that staff had reduced that to a single unit and planned to identify an in‑fleet vehicle to meet equipment needs, producing an estimated $317,000 reduction to the recommended package.
Several councilors pushed to restore the second unit after staff noted updated PWC revenue projections that increased available resources by roughly $1,000,000 in the draft materials. Council members asked whether vehicles could be provided from planned fleet replacements; staff suggested that some surplus or replacement vehicles might be repurposed rather than purchasing new units immediately.
Council discussion also addressed the grant landscape: staff noted certain federal grants carry multi‑year commitments and require the city to maintain positions after grant funding phases down. Assistant City Manager (Speaker 6) said of grant‑funded positions: “You're agreeing to the federal government... and they also just want on the comp side called the comps where you're committing to maintaining those positions in perpetuity after the grant.”
Council did not adopt a separate, standalone decision on the mental‑health units during the excerpted discussion, but members amended the larger motion on the recommended worksheet to consider restoring the unit if revenue estimates held up and to pursue fleet options for vehicles. Staff was tasked with returning with an updated funding path and the effects of any changes on the ongoing budget.
