Finance director flags $2.1M general-fund gap; council weighs limited-term staff and maintenance hire

Finance Director Tomo Oku told council that the city’s general fund is projecting a structural deficit of $2.1 million driven by personnel-driven expenditure growth outstripping revenue. He presented a table of previously approved mid‑year positions and several additional requests that staff asked the council to signal on before the final budget adoption.

Oku said three limited-term positions (HR technician, HR management analyst and police management analyst) were already included in the proposed FY25–26 budget and funded from the general fund, while two newly requested positions — a housing specialist and a maintenance worker — are multi‑funded and would add to the general‑fund gap if approved without offsets. "General fund currently has $2,100,000 deficit," Oku told the council, and he said staff hoped to recover some housing-specialist costs through new housing fees in a forthcoming master-fee study.

Several council members expressed support for the maintenance-worker hire, noting years of operational need in maintenance operations, and asked that staff return with job descriptions and funding-source detail. Staff said the job descriptions will be presented at the June 17 adoption hearing and that much of the positions’ cost will be charged to other funds or recovered through fee adjustments where appropriate. Councilors indicated they did not want to broaden the structural deficit without clear offsets and asked staff to prioritize minimizing general-fund exposure.