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The San Ramon City Council and staff met last week for a special meeting on the city’s projected budget challenges in the coming fiscal year, and recommended cuts aimed at contending with an ongoing structural deficit that is projected to more than double in the next budget cycle.
Last week’s afternoon budget workshop ahead of the regular City Council meeting that evening marked the first public discussion on the details of the city’s projected financial troubles in the 2024 to 2025 fiscal years – specifically, an estimated $14.1 million deficit – and recommended budget cuts aimed at addressing the situation.
While San Ramon has faced a structural deficit ranging from $5.9 million to $7.9 million since 2020, the scale of the current deficit, and proposed cuts to the city budget, came as surprising news with the release of the agenda for the special meeting.
Last week’s discussion kicked off with a presentation from city staff outlining the situation with recommended budget reductions including $8.1 million in cuts to city services that would heavily impact the city’s police, parks, and public works departments.
The city received five written comments on the item ahead of the workshop, and one in person comment at that evening’s meeting following staff’s presentation, from former San Ramon mayor and councilmember Greg Carr.
“The thing I’m concerned about is in the proposed reductions, for example, in the administrative services one, it really caught my eye and I’m still chuckling inside about it, it’s the reduction of third grade tour of City Hall,” Carr said. “My God those are the people we want to capture it — little guys we want to show what this is all about, have them sit up there, have them see who you are, have them understand what’s going on.”
He continued, “I suggest that you need to come up with a program using the resources you’ve got within the city to help you with some offsets outside of staffing. There’s a lot of old folks in this city who’ve been around a long time – I probably represent a lot of them in terms of my age and experience. I would urge us to try to do that.”
While the financial challenges, proposed cuts, and ensuing discussion by city officials were wide ranging, a few smaller, time-sensitive items of business were brought to the forefront early in that afternoon’s dialogue – specifically proposals to cut one of the city’s summer concerts and the dive-in movie program and to reduce hours at the Dougherty Valley Aquatic Center, and a reduction in Camp Central extended care hours.
District 4 Councilmember Marisol Rubio asked if it would be possible to double an upcoming $1 increase to lap swim fees poised to start in January to $2 and move the fee increase up to July in order to prevent a reduction in hours at the aquatic center, which staff said was feasible but would put the lap swim fee at the highest in the Tri-Valley, alongside Dublin’s facilities.
“I think they would rather have the availability of the pool,” Rubio said.
The council went on to direct staff to pursue Rubio’s suggestion, and reluctantly, approve the other proposed cuts in the immediate future.
The conversation proceeded to the large picture of the proposed cuts, including council feedback on what funding to restore with $600,000 in funds that would be available under the proposed budget balancing plan from city staff, as well as another suggestion for increasing available funds.
“We have $600,000 in available funding to restore,” City Manager Steven Spedowfski said. “Now if the council funds the infrastructure maintenance fund at the recommended critical need level of $700,000, that frees up another $800,000 so we can restore a total of $1.4 million.”
District 1 Councilmember Scott Perkins noted that the city’s Public Agency Retirement Services fund had been underestimated by $200,000, meaning that liquidating that fund as recommended by city staff in the current budget measures would yield additional funds.
“If this isn’t the situation, I don’t know what is,” Perkins said.
Councilmembers approved both moves, putting a total of $1.8 million on the table for restoring proposed cuts in the remaining discussion.
Perkins went on to identify several priorities for funding restoration, including a reduction in cuts to library hours and the restoration of the city’s Government 101, Planning Academy, and Citizens Police Academy programs. The council later approved directing staff to restore $50,000 in funding for the classes and to reduce the proposed library funding cuts from $380,000 to $210,000.
The discussion shifted to focus on proposals to restore employee appreciation and training measures across the city’s departments.
“I think training is super important, and the last thing we want to do even in lean times is to go through and cut employee training, and especially recognition,” District 2 Councilmember Mark Armstrong said. “Morale is going to be an important thing, especially as times get harder and harder.”
Part of the proposed restoration in training and recognition under the General Government category included $52,578 to restore funding for council and staff conferences and regional meetings, including the U.S. Conference of Mayors and other national and regional meetings.
All in all, restorations to recognition and training programs across the city’s departments amounted to approximately $500,000, with $1.3 million in funds remaining for restoring cuts.
Councilmembers recommended restoring two positions on the chopping block for the police department for approximately $550,000.
The council turned their attention to the Parks and Community Services Department next, recommending $6,887 in funds be restored for Monday senior van service and $110,000 for an office technician position that would be frozen under proposed cuts.
Another $219,000 in funding was recommended to be restored to reclassify a parks specialist to a parks coordinator position and to fund that position, with $184,620 recommended to restore a safety services office specialist in the community development department and $50,000 in funding recommended for updating personnel rules and regulations.
The council ended the discussion with approximately $200,000 in funding remaining available as a buffer. City staff is set to incorporate feedback and recommendations from last week’s meeting into a draft budget that is set to be presented at the May 28 council meeting ahead of a final budget presentation and vote on adoption set for June 11.
