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The Pleasanton City Council unanimously adopted its two-year Operating Budget and five-year Capital Improvement Program Tuesday, following months of public meetings, discourse and community input.
“This budget, I do think, does a fair job of balancing service delivery, which is my premise of what a city is here for,” Mayor Jack Balch said during the June 17 meeting.
Every two years, the City Council adopts a balanced two-year Operating and Capital Budget, along with the five-year Capital Improvement Program.
This year, the city had to take into consideration a structural budget deficit that is projected to set the city back roughly $13 million each year over the next eight years — that number could go up to $22 million if a recession hits.
That’s what led to the list of departmental reductions, which include a $2.8 million cut to Internal Services and Operational Support; reductions to landscaping services citywide (this includes the removal of the city’s Fall Leaf Pickup program); reducing community support and subsidies to TV 30 by 10% and to the Museum on Main and the Senior Center.
Other reductions that the council supported are reducing the total General Fund contribution to Housing and Human Services Grants to $100,000; eliminating the entire budget for community grants in youth and civic arts categories; reducing funding for police special programs; and reductions to the city’s planning and permitting department which translate to less in-person hours for the permit center and reductions to plan checking, long-range planning and permitting consultant contracts.
“Not everybody in our community is going to get what they want, which is unfortunate,” Councilmember Craig Eicher said. “It would be nice (if) we didn’t have to make cuts but some of these cuts are necessary to get to the bottom line so that way we can move forward.”
Measure PP — a sales tax increase measure which failed to get enough votes during the November 2024 election — came up during the council meeting as it has in the past.
Councilmember Julie Testa said while she recognizes that PP was meant to soften the blow of these budget reductions, the tax increase was never going to solve the city’s budget deficit and the city is still behind in terms of addressing the deficit, which means they will have to continue looking for future funding sources.
“This is difficult for all of us,” Testa said. “The community is absolutely feeling the consequences of not having that funding that we had hoped would help us get through these challenges but we definitely have a lot more challenges … we still have a lot of work to do.”
One of the main talking points during the last few months within the community was the proposed cuts to the library.
According to supplemental material that staff provided to the council, the city is still considering different schedule options for the library. The final schedule will definitely include 48 hours of service — open six days out of the week and eight hours each day — and might include the retention of some evening hours where the library stays open until 9 p.m.
However, staff is not recommending closing the library on Fridays, as was previously discussed at the May 20 council meeting, for various reasons.
City Manager Gerry Beaudin said the library will be saving $830,000 in the first year thanks to the reduction in library hours and $940,000 in year two. Beaudin said the city still needs to work with its labor partners to make sure they are adjusting the hours appropriately and with consideration of staff.
The adopted budget will also continue to set aside funds for the Crossing Guard Program but instead of funding all 22 positions, the Pleasanton Unified School District will manage 10 of those positions while the city will manage the remaining 12. Beaudin said this will be a pilot year for this new set up so that both entities can figure out the new process and whether or not it works financially and practically.
One of the key adjustments that the city made to the budget based on the council’s direction at the May 20 meeting was to reduce the use of Section 115 Pension Trust funds from $4 million — which the council majority previously agreed on — to $3 million.
This topic continued to create tension between Testa and Balch during the June 17 meeting because while Balch said keeping the money in the trust fund would help it earn more interest, Testa said the use of one-time funds was not the best way to address the city’s structural deficit. Testa had previously been against the use of any 115 trust fund money and said during the May 20 council meeting that reducing the amount being used by the city is more for show.
Balch argued against the notion that the use of 115 trust fund money is one-time funds.
The council also agreed to reduce the transfer to the city’s deferred maintenance asset management program by $1.6 million, which also created tension between Vice Mayor Jeff Nibert and Balch because Nibert wanted to maintain funding for future infrastructure and maintenance needs.
Along with adopting the budget, the council also unanimously approved an unexpected third motion to direct staff to bring back an agenda report at a later council meeting on a train quiet zone, which would include information on funding sources, timeline and the process for implementing such a quiet zone.
“Guys, it’s loud,” Justin Smith, a downtown Pleasanton resident who lives near the train tracks, said during the meeting. “I got a decibel reader just a few days ago … and I was actually shocked by this. I went to my driveway and the first reading I took for the train that came by was 119.7 decibels.”
Other speakers during public comment also spoke in support of establishing a quiet zone saying the city needs to invest in this project.
The quiet zone feasibility study is the first step for the city to determine how much it would cost to establish such a thing. The study has been in the city’s CIP prioritization process and was analyzed by the city but Beaudin recommended that the council direct staff to bring back a proposal at a later time.
The quiet zone project previously ranked low during the city’s CIP prioritization process, which is why the project was not included in the two-year proposed CIP budget for fiscal years 2025-26 and 2026-27.
City Traffic Engineer Mike Tassano told the council that the cost for hiring a consultant to evaluate the feasibility and cost of implementing railroad quiet zones would be approximately $175,000.
Councilmember Matt Gaidos said he wanted to do everything in the council’s power to support the establishment of a quiet zone after having spoken with many people who live near the tracks who told him that the noise has been getting worse.
“I think that’s a worthwhile expenditure because it directly impacts the living conditions of our community,” Gaidos said.
Other public speakers also focused on another aspect of the adopted budget — employee layoffs.
The city plans on eliminating 12 staff positions — two of those positions are currently staffed while the rest are vacant. In the past, Beaudin said the city was trying to do everything they could to keep those employees by moving them around within the organization.
But during the June 17 meeting, it was revealed that the two positions — a library staff member and a PPD communications employee — will be laid off. The city’s director of finance Susan Hsieh said both layoffs will total about $300,000 in savings for the city.
Teri Yan, community and public relations coordinator for PPD, spoke up during public comment and asked the city to reconsider saving her position so that she could continue providing the community with important public safety information.
“I love my job and I’m proud of the work that I have done to support this city,” Yan said. “I believe in the value this position brings not just to the police department, but to the community we serve.”
Lisa Harlow, a union representative for AFSCME Council 57 — which represents city employees — also spoke during public comment and said if the city does indeed lay off employees as prescribed in the adopted budget, it would be a disgrace for a city that has a history of not laying off its workers.
Harlow also said the layoffs were illegal because one of the two employees who will be laid off testified against the city in an unfair labor practice hearing in January because the city changed job descriptions while the other employee asked for a raise after their duties were “significantly expanded”.
Eicher said he did struggle with the idea of laying off employees and he made a motion to try to keep the two staff members but that motion failed to get a second by the rest of the council.
In response to the employee layoffs, Beaudin reiterated that it has been a challenging time for the city and that staff has really tried to leave as many positions vacant as possible in order to avoid laying people off.
