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Pleasanton City Manager Gerry Beaudin said there was a lot of “doom and gloom” regarding many aspects of the city’s finances as he and other city staff went over the annual report for capital projects with the City Council.
The council adopted staff’s year-end financial and program delivery report for the 2023-24 fiscal year on Nov. 19 following a lengthy discussion about the city’s operating budget and its upcoming financial challenges.
“I would ask that the public keep the council members in their prayers as we are about to embark on a very, very difficult road ahead,” Councilmember Jeff Nibert said during the Nov. 19 meeting. “With many significant challenges that we face, it’s going to be a lot of hard decisions.”
Every year, staff present the unaudited results for the operating and capital improvement program (CIP) budgets. The two high-level overviews cover the previous fiscal year.
The audited information will be reflected in the city’s annual comprehensive financial report, which will be presented to the council sometime in January or February after the city’s independent auditor and the audit committee review it.
Last month’s presentation on the CIP budget — which funds various projects throughout the city — also included several key highlights such as how much money is being carried forward to the next year, what projects were completed and details about how the city plans on prioritizing projects in the future.
According to finance director Susan Hsieh’s presentation, the city will be carrying forward $86.5 million to the 2024-25 fiscal year. She said over $61 million of those funds will support active design and construction projects while nearly $20 million will be held as reserve money or for “on-hold projects”.
A little over $5 million will also be put aside for future projects.
Adam Nelkie, senior civil engineer for the city, went over the completed projects in 2023-24, which included various street infrastructure projects, citywide fence installations, a cricket pitch at Ken Mercer Sports Park and others.
But one of the more noteworthy points brought up in the meeting was when Nelkie went over the next steps for the CIP, which mainly centered around the idea of better planning for the future.
He highlighted the asset management plan that the city is developing in order to better understand the condition of the city’s infrastructure as well as the various other management plans for the city’s water, sewers and storm drains.
Nelkie then mentioned that the city is developing a CIP prioritization program that is based on the city’s ONE Pleasanton five-year strategic plan, in order to capture the community’s true needs and properly rank and prioritize different CIP projects.
He said that the CIP program will be presented to the council in the coming months and that it will help the city develop a five-year CIP for the 2025-26 to 2030-31 fiscal years.
There weren’t too many specific projects called out by the council, except for Councilmember Jack Balch who clarified for the skatepark renovation project at Ken Mercer Sports Park that the design of the project had been completed and was ready to submit for bids before the council deferred that item due to budget constraints.
Balch also called out the historic Century House on Santa Rita Road and how staff were recommending carrying forward $700,000 but as Nelkie said, that money would go toward ensuring the stability of the roof following past repairs.
Mayor Karla Brown also called out the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department Station No. 2 and how that station is in desperate need of repairs.
“That was built in the ’70s … it has been left behind many times,” Brown said.
But Beaudin said even though “much of that building doesn’t meet current standard”, nothing much can be done unless the city received grants from the state, which he also said is unlikely.
The only way Beaudin said the city could repair the fire station is through a bond, which Vice Mayor Julie Testa immediately opposed.
She said she didn’t understand how the city had money to complete the Fire Station No. 3 project last year but not enough money to repair the current station No. 2. Beaudin explained how the city basically had been putting aside money for that new fire station for several years but is not able to do the same now with the city’s current budget challenges.
Beaudin said he hopes the city can still work with the community to not just take care of the core needs, but to also have enough money to do things for residents — hopefully by securing future grants — even if they are smaller projects that don’t cost too much.
However, Testa wanted a clear message at the end: for now, the city is saying no to new CIP projects.
“I want a clear message for the community … because I think the answer is no,” Testa said.
