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After several months of contentious budget meetings and dozens of public speakers pleading to save services and amenities such as the public library, the Pleasanton City Council is set to review the city’s two-year budget, which includes a myriad of cuts and reductions, during Tuesday’s council meeting.
The dais will be reviewing the proposed Operating and Capital Budget — along with the city’s multi-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP) — before providing staff with additional direction regarding “issues or amendments to address prior to formal City Council action planned for June 17.”
“This report presents the two-year proposed budget and five-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP) incorporating the direction of the City Council on General Fund Budget reduction recommendations from prior public meetings to facilitate public comment, address any budget-related questions, and provide direction regarding amendments or additional information in advance of the planned formal adoption of the city budget in June,” according to the May 20 staff report.
Every two years, the City Council adopts a balanced two-year Operating and Capital Budget, along with the five-year CIP.
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.
After residents failed to pass Measure PP in November — a half cent sales tax increase that was meant to alleviate the deficit — the city found itself in a difficult position of having to make several budget cuts and reductions in order to balance the upcoming budget.
“The proposed operating budget reflects the need for approximately $10 to $12 million in ongoing General Fund reductions in each of the next two fiscal years,” according to Tuesday’s staff report.
The city’s 2025-26 expenditure budget across all operating funds totals $248.2 million — the expenditure budget for 2026-27 is projected to be $257.5 million, according to the staff report.
As for the General Fund operating expenditure budget, the city is projected to spend a total of $154.7 million and $160.7 million for fiscal years 2025-26 and 2026-27, respectively.
“With transfers out, the overall General Fund expenditure budget is $165.2 million and $171.2 million for the next two years,” according to staff.
The General Fund budget anticipates modest revenue growth over the next two years with revenues totaling $162.9 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year and $169.3 million the following fiscal year. However, despite that projected growth, the city stated it is not enough to “address all the city’s needs and close the structural deficit as expenditures are projected to continue growing faster than revenues.”
The council previously approved the use of one-time funding including the use of $4 million from the Section 115 Pension Trust, $2.1 million from the Retiree Medical/Other Post-Employment Benefits Trust over the next two years, and $3 million from the city’s capital reserve.
“The use of one-time funds and redirecting funding away from capital and maintenance needs is not sustainable, and the structural deficit remains,” according to staff. “This situation will be exacerbated by any economic downturn and/or costs rising beyond what is projected. Without further service reductions and/or supplemental, sustainable, ongoing revenue, the city will continue to face these fiscal challenges.”
But the proposed reductions from certain operating areas within the city has been the central focus for a lot of residents in the city.
Over the past year, the city has been working with a newly-formed Budget Advisory Committee to collect feedback from the community and identify what services and amenities were the most important to residents and where the city should make its cuts and reductions. That led to the creation of a list of proposed reductions, which were presented to the council on April 8 and April 10.
Using that list, along with council direction during those April meetings, city staff created the final draft of the proposed budget, which will be presented to the council for the first time on Tuesday.
“Recommended service reductions were vetted with the Budget Advisory Committee at meetings from January to April 2025, and community feedback was also considered in developing the proposed budget,” according to Tuesday’s staff report. “As the city faces an ongoing structural deficit, with revenues not keeping pace with expenses, the proposed budget and CIP do not fully account for the city’s true capital investment needs due to a lack of funding. As a result, the proposed budget incorporates a range of reductions while balancing commitments to the community.”
The council previously gave staff direction to make cuts to over a dozen services and amenities that would result in approximately $6.2 million in savings for the fiscal year 2025-26 and $6.6 million in the following fiscal year — both amounts are short a couple million dollars from the city’s original reduction targets.
One of the more controversial proposed service reductions are the cuts to the Pleasanton Public Library.
According to the staff report, the reduction of library hours from 62 hours a week to 48 hours is one of the largest cost savings in the proposed budget — staff state the reduction represents the city’s best effort to “achieve significant savings (close to $1.0 million starting in Year 2) while preserving core library programs.”
While there are other proposed library restructuring as part of the reductions, a number residents — many of them being current and former Pleasanton Unified School District students — have spoken out against the reduced library hours and have pleaded with the council to consider the impact reducing the library’s hours will have on students who use the space to study.
An online petition to keep the library out of the budget cut discussions has also been circulating in the community and currently has almost 1,500 signatures.
According to the staff report, the council will also be receiving some newer reductions and restructuring recommendations as part of the two-year budget.
One restructure included in the budget will be to add one full-time employee to the city’s Economic Development Department and to consolidate the economic and community development resources.
“The two-year budget includes a proposed organizational change to transition the Economic Development Division, currently housed in the City Manager’s Office, to a division of the Community Development Department, which would be re-titled to the Community and Economic Development Department,” according to the staff report.
In addition to the current economic development manager, the division will include a new economic development and business development manager, according to staff.
Following the two April council meetings, staff also revised some of the proposed reductions regarding the maintenance of parks and trails.
The proposed reductions included in the draft budget look to reduce funding for outside contracts that typically handle mowing the city’s lawns. The reductions would also reallocate two full-time equivalent staff positions to “offset the impacts of reduced contracts and support the ongoing maintenance and overall conditions of city parks while eliminating median mulching and fall leaf pickup.”
“While some decrease in service levels will occur (e.g., less frequent mowing), the proposed approach aims to preserve park conditions to avoid unplanned capital replacement needs,” according to the staff report. “This revised service level represents a compromise that yields significant savings for the city by eliminating contracts and freezing 2.0 FTE positions, while also reallocating existing staff resources to continue the city’s standard for maintaining the park system.”
Another revision to the proposed service reductions is regarding the freezing of the fire marshal position for the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department. Staff are recommending to reverse that proposal. The city had also recommended to freeze the emergency preparedness manager position but now staff are asking to instead add back a part-time position at a reduced cost in order to support the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program.
“The City of Livermore and Pleasanton are the only two members of the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department Joint Powers Authority (LPFD JPA), and while these reductions were initially considered viable for streamlining operations, ultimately the changes were not supported by the City of Livermore,” staff stated in the report. “Due to the timing of this decision, the changes could not be incorporated into the Proposed Operating Budget.”
Apart from the operating budget, the council will also review the city’s multi-year CIP, which addresses improvements and maintenance projects.
During the April 10 council meeting, the dais supported staff’s recommendations for seven critical CIP projects and funding for two core projects — all of which total $16.6 million.
“The prioritized projects will address regulatory requirements, minimize the likelihood of facility closures, or be significantly grant-funded,” according to staff.
In that same meeting, staff also recommended reallocating $2 million of the 2025-26 General Fund CIP contribution to “support repairs and replacements in the Facilities Renovation Fund.”
“This reallocation will extend the service life of critical community assets such as the Dolores Bengtson Aquatic Center, Fire Station 2, and Bernal Synthetic Fields, and other deferred maintenance which would otherwise require major capital reinvestment if allowed to further deteriorate,” according to staff. “This resulted in a total of $15.5 million from the CIP General Fund in addition to the City’s commitment of $30.3 million over the next five years for Deferred Maintenance.”
The City Council meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday (May 20). The full agenda can be accessed here.
In other business:
* The council will be receiving a report from the Pleasanton Police Department that will include updates on key initiatives, recent crime trends, crime data reporting, personnel investigations and staffing.
The item was previously continued from the May 6 council meeting due to prolonged discussions regarding the Gulf Gas Station signage rebranding and the city’s water rate-setting process.
According to the staff report, one of the highlights from the past year includes the addition of a crime analyst, which has allowed the department to “target and solve certain types of crimes more effectively.”
The report states that crimes are down 10% to 15% and, while still an issue, the city saw a significant decrease in property crime last year. Other points of note include PPD using force in less than 1% of all contacts, staffing being stable, youth engagement efforts having grown and the department’s continued effort to refine emergency response times.
If only the Budget Advisory Committee had really been given a chance to make recommendations. None of them voted to make a motion to move forward with the City Manager’s reduction targets. Our City Manager ignored them and put his own proposal for cuts forward. I want to thank the committee for their time but am sorry they wasted their time.