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Reducing the number of days the Pleasanton Public Library is open, eliminating the city-funded school crossing guard program and getting rid of the Pleasanton Police Department’s special enforcement and investigative unit are just some of the budget reductions the Pleasanton City Council will review as part of a special council meeting Tuesday.
The special meeting on April 8 will be the first time the council analyzes the city’s proposed budget cuts after months of community engagement, committee hearings and internal discussions. After the council provides initial feedback during the meeting, staff will work on developing the city’s two-year budget, which will include these proposed reductions, and bring it back to the council for final adoption in June.
“There are different folks who value different things across the organization,” City Manager Gerry Beaudin told the Weekly in an interview. “There are going to be groups of people who are impacted by anything we do in terms of service reductions.”
Over the past year and a half the city has been warning residents of a structural budget deficit that is projected to set the city back, on average, roughly $13 million each year over the next eight years — that number could go as high as $22 million if a recession hits. These projections came from a 10-year financial forecast that was previously found to be accurate by an independent accounting firm.
According to the April 8 staff report, Pleasanton is facing a $10.4 million budget shortfall in the 2025-26 fiscal year and a $12 million shortfall in the 2026-27 fiscal year.
The city’s structural deficit has been attributed to many things including rising personnel costs, inflation, slow real estate development, loss of revenue from hotel taxes and the city’s pandemic funds being depleted.
Other notable reasons include unfunded liability pension costs that remain at over $200 million and a $900 million infrastructure funding gap over the next decade to maintain community assets like buildings, parks, roads and pipes.
According to a special April edition of the city’s e-newsletter, Pleasanton has taken various steps to address the structural deficit such as, “deferring maintenance on its parks, buildings, pool and roads.”
“In the prior fiscal year … we tried really hard to save money in order to have the funds available for other services and programs,” Susan Hsieh, the city’s finance director, told the Weekly Thursday.
During the last two fiscal years the city has also saved money by “leaving numerous vacant staff positions unfilled,” and during the last fiscal year, the city specifically saved $2.5 million by “freezing unfilled positions, and reducing budgets for travel and training, operational materials and supplies, and contracted services.”
In addition to cost-saving measures the city has taken, staff also pointed to several revenue generating efforts that the city has pursued over the past two years including increasing fees for hosting special events and using the city’s facilities and increasing fees for developers looking to build new projects in the city.
Staff also noted the recent authorization from the council for the city to draw down from the Section 115 Pension trust fund over the next two years to help offset the overall budget shortfall.
“Based on City Council direction, approximately $2 million in one-time funds (anticipated interest from the Section 115 Trust) has been applied to the preliminary structural deficit in FY 2025/26 and again in FY 2026/27,” according to the April 8 staff report. “That resulted in a baseline reduction target of $8.4 million in General Fund spending reductions (services, programs, personnel) in FY 2025/26 and $10.0 million in FY 2026/27 using preliminary baseline assumptions.”
However, even with the inclusion of revenue being generated from the city’s first-ever Costco, the city has said that all of these cost saving measures and revenue generating efforts will not appropriately address the overall structural deficit.
Last year, the city also tried passing Measure PP, a half-cent sales tax revenue measure, which city officials said would have generated roughly $10 million in revenue each year. However, that measure failed in getting enough votes in the November election, which is what led staff to shift gears to looking at making reductions to city services.
Over the past few months, the city has conducted a number of community outreach efforts to gauge residents’ thoughts about what services matter the most. From over 700 people responding to a community survey online, to a recent town hall regarding the budget, residents have been making their voices heard about what they think the city should cut and what it should save.
In addition to hearing from the community, the City Council also approved the formation of a Budget Advisory Committee, which met several times since January to digest the community’s input and help city staff come up with a list of proposed budget reductions to several service areas throughout the organization.
According to the city, the proposed reductions that will be presented to the council on Tuesday will include a $2.8 million cut to Internal Services and Operational Support; $2.05 million cut to Library and Recreation; a $1.75 million cut to Parks, Streets, Facilities; a $1.66 million cut to Community Support and Human Services; and a $920,000 cut to Planning and Building.
Of note, only 1% of the city’s police and fire departments’ budget — which is $66 million — is being considered for reduction while the city’s library and recreation services along with its community support and human services departments are each facing an 18% and 19% budget cut, respectively.
According to the city’s Preliminary Proposed Budget Reductions fact sheet, each of these reductions to the various departments will have different levels of impact to the community.
Internal Services and Operational Support cuts reflect the largest reductions that will have the least impact on residents. The city will specifically be looking to reduce general administrative costs and make internal personnel changes across multiple departments.
Beaudin and Hsieh noted that city executives and managers like themselves did not receive increases over the past year but that these internal and operational changes will mostly affect part-time employees and the city’s ability to communicate information with residents.
“We’ve been a pretty lean organization for many years,” Beaudin said. “The community has grown, the programs and services that are offered have grown and so to be able to sustain that was stretching the organization already.”
“Reducing employees to support these programs and services are going to show up in a number of different ways,” Beaudin added.
One of the other largest cuts to city services will be to the city’s Library and Recreation department, which will have more direct impacts on the community.
According to the city, these cuts would result in the library closing two days per week and converting all adult sports (softball, basketball, bocce) to self-run programs.
“This reduction would also reduce or eliminate non-cost recovery events such as the Hometown Holiday Parade, Rose Show, Movies in the Park and some cultural celebrations,” according to the city. “These reductions will impact the community as they are beloved community events. These cuts are recommended for their minimal impact on Pleasanton residents on a day-to-day basis.”
Beaudin said the city was recently able to obtain a book mobile that will help the city offer some additional services.
However, communications manager Heather Tiernan said while cuts like these are challenging, the library reductions specifically will yield significant savings in order to maintain other services.
“It is a pretty significant savings that we are getting from this reduction and it would be really hard for the city to meet the goal without a couple reductions that provide significant savings,” Tiernan said.
Some of the other specific cuts and reductions across the other departments include reducing park and trail maintenance; eliminating the city-funded contract for 22 crossing guard locations in Pleasanton; eliminating the School Resource Officer program and assigning those two SRO officers; eliminating the special enforcement and investigative unit; and the reduction of funding for consultant planning and plan-checking services in the city’s permit center and for consultants across various departments — in addition to consultant reductions made in the current year budget.
The council will also be able to review seven additional potential program and service reductions that are not included in the preliminary recommendation, including the controversial proposals to close the Dolores Bengtson Aquatic Center, which would save the city an additional $1.2 million, and the closure of a Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department station, which would save the city $1.15 million.
Other alternative reductions that are not being included in the proposed staff recommended reductions include reducing support for non-emergency calls, reducing or eliminating the Alternative Response Unit, reducing the Firehouse Arts Center hours, reducing the Senior Center hours and updating the city’s sidewalk maintenance obligations.
Many residents have opposed reductions like the aquatic center and the Firehouse, which is why staff did not include these in the proposed final list of reduction recommendations.
After the council reviews the proposed list of reductions and the alternative recommendations on Tuesday, staff will draft a two-year budget to present to the dais on May 20 before bringing back the final budget and proposed reductions for adoption on June 17.
The special City Council meeting is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. Tuesday (April 8). The full agenda can be accessed here.
In other business
City staff will also be presenting a summary of the city’s Capital Improvement Program, which outlines current capital projects that rely on the city’s General Fund for funding, and will be seeking council direction on how to prioritize these projects as the council considers the previous preliminary budget reduction.
“We haven’t been investing in maintaining the things that we own, which is creating operational issues for us,” Beaudin said.
According to the April 8 staff report, the city is developing its five-year CIP amid “infrastructure funding challenges.”
“The city has identified approximately $900 million in ‘state of good repair’ infrastructure needs over the next 10 years, and available funding is insufficient to meet these demands,” the staff report states.
While the city is working on completing its Asset Management Program (AMP) by the end of the year, which staff said would provide more precise data to guide future investment decisions, the city’s current funding challenges require prioritization of the most urgent projects.
Staff have already identified $53.4 million in needed General Fund-supported CIP requests but because the city’s General Fund is not expected to address all those requests, staff will be recommending that the council defer most of the identified CIP projects and in the interim, only prioritize the most urgent and critical projects that would total $16.6 million.
“As the AMP advances toward completion later this year, staff will present new options to the City Council to plan for and take care of the City’s long-term capital funding needs,” according to the staff report.
The city’s list for community input has 25 items totaling ~$11.5 Million and the city is asking residents to identify ~7 M for cuts from it. But why are the residents asked for inputs to only a fraction of the city’s budget. The items in the city’s list directly impact the few services the city currently provides. I am ok with cutting some items like library hours etc. But what is the city doing to cut other major expenditures from its $150+ Million general fund, improve efficiencies, improve productivity, renegotiate contracts, reduce personel costs. I am really disappointed with the City manager, staff, mayor and council. In addition the city continues to raise prices for water. It seems like only the residents have to keep paying more for everything everytime and the city fundamentally never shrinks its expenses even when the population has been declining in Pleasanton.
The majority of residents do not participate in, use, or in any way partake of these services the city has listed as potential budget cuts. If they did, the city would be required to double the size of the library and the swimming center, and additionaly other facilities. The defeat of Measure PP sales tax tends to support this thinking.