CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council approved the city finance director's proposal to amend key areas of the 2015-16 budget and set aside funds to plan for needed equipment replacement – from police cars to Public Works equipment.
Finance Director Chris Becnel took the midyear budget review to the council at a special meeting Thursday night at Clearlake City Hall.
Becnel's presentation took up the second half of a meeting that began with City Manager Greg Folsom's progress report on a list of 36 city council goals that his staff has been working on over the past six months.
A rundown of the first half of the meeting and those goals can be found here: www.bit.ly/1Rcvn6b .
In explaining the budget's composition, Becnel noted that 72 percent of the city's budget – not including capital projects – is spent on personnel.
“A lot of the way that you accomplish your goals is through the proper application of the work that the personnel do in the city,” he said, explaining that the personnel positions should reflect the city's goals.
“I would also like to remind you that the staffing is extremely tight and at or very near capacity,” he said.
Becnel said the tendency is to assume there is an unlimited ability of ability of staff to do things, but there isn't. He urged the council to keep in mind that there are only so many people there to do the work. Many of the staffers also have multiple tasks and allowing them to spread into other areas can allow inefficiencies.
The budget includes about 50 employees, plus the five council members, said Becnel.
The Clearlake Police Department is the city's largest department, with 30.5 positions, of which 22.5 are sworn officers, five dispatch and three nonsworn. The department is in the process of hiring an additional officer now, he said.
According to Folsom's report earlier in the meeting, the police department had 21,508 incidents, 3,543 reports, 2,288 traffic enforcement stops, 1,989 arrests and 1,311 citations in a year's time.
Becnel said Code Enforcement staff is down by one person and Public Works is fully staffed. In administration, one of the requests from staff was to add a full-time engineer, as the city has been contracting for that position, and it creates inefficiencies.
Referring back to Folsom's presentation and the impressive number of tasks the staff has completed or has in process, Becnel said, “That ain't many people to do all of that work.”
Becnel said his staff tabulation didn't include the part-time state drought workers that the state is paying to help the city. They began with seven in Public Works – and are now at five – with two in the administration.
“They are making a significant impact in the workload of the city,” said Becnel, noting that additional help ends in May.
Folsom said the city was allowed a six-month allocation for the state drought workers.
Becnel then went over the city's cash flow, noting total revenues are up about $51,000, with expenses up about $48,000, through Dec. 31.
He said they had about $95,000 in unbudgeted revenues, and transient occupancy tax – or bed tax – now exceeds all of the budgeted year plus $6,000.
Building permit fees also are up $10,000, with more construction now occurring in Clearlake, he said. Senior center rental fees also are up.
Altogether, that nets out to another $77,000, in addition to the $95,000 unanticipated revenue he previously mentioned.
He went over the spending side and the significant budget adjustments staff requested in five specific areas: animal control, $34,268; community development, $102,000; legal fees, $83,075; engineering, $39,067; and the Clearlake Police Department Nixle service, $6,500.
Regarding animal control, he said the city had to incur some short-term costs while developing long-term solutions including making modifications to the temporary facility at the Public Works yard to accommodate the animals.
Improvements included spending $13,000 for kennels – which they needed to buy for the new facility anyway – from bond funds and hiring a temporary kennel technician, he said.
Becnel said the city administration also wanted a full-time office assistant job, at about $20,000 for the last six months, in order to allow the city's animal control officer to spend more time on the streets and less time doing paperwork, licensing and other responsibilities.
He said the costs were temporary, and based on estimates, that the cost to the city for animal control in the future is estimated to be “significantly higher.”
In community development, the city wanted to add $30,000 to cover planning assistance from consultant Gary Price, plus $72,000 for Price's work on the general plan, with those funds to come from bond money. Becnel said that $102,000 is to be added to the $75,000 the city originally budgeted.
Becnel said the additional $83,075 in legal fees includes a $9,075 adjustment to the city's contract with the Jones & Mayer law firm, for whom City Attorney Ryan Jones works, along with $15,000 in miscellaneous litigation costs.
He also added a litigation reserve of $59,000 – not with Jones & Mayer – that pertains to a case discussed in closed session. Becnel said that $59,000 may not be spent at all, but he wanted to have it ready in case it proves necessary.
The city's adopted budget for engineering services was $65,329. Of that amount, $12,280 had not been spent. Becnel said the city wants to make a net adjustment of $39,067 – for a total adjusted budget of $104,396 – to add a city engineer/superintendent position.
As the city sees more development, a city engineer will be critical, he said.
Moving to the $6,500 police department adjustment for the Nixle public notification service, Becnel said the city has no comprehensive way of notifying the public about public safety issues, and Nixle – also used by the sheriff's office and the Lakeport Police Department – is meant to address that issue.
Becnel then looked at the police department's spending rate, noting that the agency's overall budget for this fiscal year is about $3.6 million.
He said that in the last budget year, when the department still had numerous vacancies, a large amount of overtime was incurred. When creating the current fiscal year budget, the department's overtime budget was similarly planned to be high because administrative staff didn't know if those positions were going to be filled or not.
However, with that overtime now down, in the first half of the current fiscal year the police department underspent its budget by about $175,000, Becnel said. If they continue at that rate, there could be an end-of-year savings of $350,000.
Going over the net adjustment reconciliation – which includes the unbudgeted revenue and unspent funds, Becnel said at the year's end the city budget would be underspent in approved revenues $523,501.
Less the $264,910 budget adjustments requested for the five key budget areas, that leaves $258,591 in net unallocated funds, he said.
Becnel said that as he looked at the budget over the last few years, “It became painfully obvious to me that the way the city goes about funding equipment purchases is on a very ad hoc basis.”
He sat down with city administrative staff to plan for how much money to set aside on an annual basis to be able to acquire the equipment that they need consistently without creating havoc with the budget.
The council has set up a number of reserves, he said. For the last few years, the city has been funding the revenue reserve – also called the “reserve for economic uncertainty” – and with the audit finished for last year and the $50,000 he plans to put into it this year, at the end of this year the city will have a $307,000 balance in that fund, according to Becnel.
“You all were hoping to get to 5 percent. Well, that's 6.77 percent,” he said.
He said he then looked at other ways to stabilize the city's financial situation, so he began to look at the economic replacement reserve.
He recommended putting aside $212,000 aside to cover the police department equipment expense.
Becnel said he sat down with acting Chief Tim Celli and his sergeants to look at the police department's needs over a 10-year time period. Key equipment includes 22 police vehicles, Tasers, body cameras, a dispatch communication panel and computers.
He said that it would require putting aside about $212,000 annually – or about 5 percent of the department budget – to cover the needed equipment on an ongoing basis.
One of the police department's critical issues currently is the need for upgraded communications panels, which is the interface between the calls from the community and the officers on the street, Becnel said.
He said one of the department's two panels is dead, and they are now using a panel that Celli said is at least 20 years old.
“I suspect it's way beyond its useful life,” said Becnel, adding the police department would be in trouble if it failed.
The panels can be replaced for $47,000, Becnel said.
If the council chose to do nothing else, he urged its members to approve the purchase of the new panels. “The consequence of the failure is extremely serious,” he said.
The next department with expensive equipment requirements is Public Works. Becnel said he worked with Public Works Director Doug Herren on what he would need over the next 10 years. That number comes to about $65,000 annually.
He said Public Works needs a few trucks and a utility dump trailer this year, at a cost of $30,000 each for the trucks and $10,000 for the trailer. “The trucks we have are fairly old,” Herren said.
The city's road tax funds – which now total about $580,000 – will help cover those purchases, Becnel said. He said those road funds are accumulated to help cover road projects, which are expensive and can quickly exhaust that money.
Becnel recommended an estimated annual equipment reserve of $293,100 to cover all departments. That total number includes the $212,000 recommended for police reserves along with $65,500 for Public Works, $5,000 for administration and $10,000 for code enforcement.
“We will spend some of that this year,” he said, with about $146,000 of the $212,000 to be spent this year for the new police communications panels, two new patrol cars and some Tasers. The carryover would be added to next year's reserve.
“The benefit is, we can plan out the expenditures, we know when they're coming,” he said.
Councilwoman Joyce Overton agreed that Public Works needed new vehicles, but wanted to see the allocation increased, as she was concerned it wasn't enough.
In the discussion with the council regarding his equipment, Herren said, “The last equipment we bought new was in 2002.”
The older vehicles were surplus from Pacific Gas and Electric and other local agencies. Herren said he's tired of spending money to fix them.
Herren agreed with Overton to ask for $10,000 additionally for each truck, bringing the total cost to $40,000 each. When asked about the purchasing process, Herren said he started looking at vehicles in November and was waiting for bids.
“I appreciate that this document and this process gets easier every year,” said Vice Mayor Gina Fortino Dickson.
Fortino Dickson noted that the fiscal situation is improving every year, and she appreciated the staff focus and forward thinking, which is helping the council make both micro and macro decisions as it looks to the future.
She said the budget document also helps the council to strategize for the future and get the most out of its money.
Overton moved to approve the resolution for the budget adjustments – with the increase she proposed for vehicle purchases – with Councilman Bruno Sabatier seconding and the council approving it 5-0.
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Clearlake City Council amends 2015-16 budget, approves equipment reserve proposal
- Elizabeth Larson
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