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Salas, Diana From: Tim Johnson <tjohnson@jlkrllp.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020 9:41 AM To: eComment Cc: Solorio, Jose; Pulido, Miguel; Iglesias, Cecilia; Sarmiento, Vicente; Villegas, Juan; Penaloza, David; Bacerra, Phil; Ridge, Kristine; Downs, Kathryn Subject: 65A- Appropriations Adjustments Council/City Manager/Exec Director Downs ... On tonight's agenda you will be discussing a mid -year budget update and vote on an appropriations adjustment. First, I am on the Measure X Citizens Oversight Committee but am not writing this in an official capacity on behalf of the oversight committee but instead am writing on my own behalf. I am pleased that our revenue is higher than budgeted. This is great news. I would urge you to pause though in appropriating these funds too early if you feel that all of the needs and options have not been fully vetted. If we continue to spend every dollar too quickly we may not be making the wisest choices for the community. You have an opportunity to really determine the right course of action with the funds that are being generated. I believe that the city should look at all of the needs of the city, put those all on the table, and then discuss them in order to prioritize. One of those priorities may actually be to increase the reserve in case of a future recession which will no doubt have a major impact as discussed on page 3 of the staff report (3r4 Paragraph). Additionally, I would urge you to pause in order to consider whether the Measure X sales tax funds which are contributing $1.1M of the projected revenue increases. Are you holding yourself to the will of the residents who voted in this tax increase? Are you listening to the Measure X Citizens Oversight Committee? I am not sure you are because you have not even heard from the Committee. If you value the opinion of those who you have appointed, then I believe that you should want to hear from the Committee. The current budget was approved prior to the X Committee being formed and therefore they were unable to speak into it and now a mid -year appropriations adjustment is being made even after the Committee asked to provide a mid -year update and was denied the opportunity to do so because there was no actionable items... well, here is your actionable item. You are being asked to appropriate over $1M of Measure X revenue. Please pause. Read the recession language from page 3 of the staff report which I have pasted a picture of below. Consider that Measure X is a temporary tax increase and will not last forever even though its sunset seems far into the future. Consider the entire needs of the city. Make smart financial choices by planning ahead instead of reacting to a bit of good news by quickly appropriating those funds. Put all the needs of the city on the table, discuss them, prioritize them, and then vote on them. The appropriations proposal includes about $229K to general fund priorities including $90K for public works homeless clean up efforts and SAPID cell phone technology improvements, $89K repairing leaky city hall windows, and $50K for census outreach. Additionally, there are $6.25M (net) allocation to non -general fund priorities mainly to the capital street fund (per the Sept 17 council mtg) and $280K for the general plan update. Is there where you want the $6M of anticipated additional revenue to be allocated? Do you know what other priorities we have? Do you know what the impact will be on the capital street fund? What streets will be repaired/repaved/redone? Streets are extremely important but there are folks who want to know what the impact will truly be where the rubber meets the road, literally.