Rohnert Park’s City Council at its last meeting on Tuesday, May 28, held a workshop concerning special revenue funds in preparation for its budget for Fiscal Year 2024-25.
The final budget will be presented at the June 25 council meeting. Rohnert Park has more than 50 special revenue funds and the presentation has grouped those revenue funds into 11 categories.
Rohnert Park, according to a staff report, had more than 90 special revenue funds and in the past year the finance staff has consolidated certain funds and closed others due to inactivity.
The process of putting together a budget for a city is long and exhausting for a city staff, particularly when faced with diminishing sources of revenue. Councilmembers showed their appreciation for the Rohnert Park city staff past and present for the work on the budget for the next fiscal year.
“I saw a lot of parity, a lot of balance in the budget…for me the cake is baked,” Vice Mayor Gerard Giudice said. “Kudos to previous city managers and city councils for starting some of those enterprise funds. It has served our city well. And now that we’re coming up against kind of a dry spell regionally in terms of money. Money drying up in Sacramento; it’s drying up in the county. We’re balancing this budget with transfers in, but obviously that’s not sustainable in the long term. I appreciate preservation of emergency funds, so we’re not tapping into those. Most importantly I appreciate the vision. We are trying to build a downtown, which is a herculean effort. Setting money aside for that is going to be very important as we try to build this out.”
Special revenue funds are used to account for and report the proceeds of specific revenue sources that are restricted or committed to expenditure for specified purposes. Some examples of special revenue funds are Graton Mitigation Funds, Abandoned Vehicle Abatement Fund, Traffic Safety Fund, Traffic Signals Fee Fund, Measure M Parks Fund and Gas Tax Fund.
A total of $84.3 million in revenue is available from special revenue funds, capital improvement projects, casino contributions and other restricted funding sources in fiscal year 2024-2025, according to the report.
This includes a proposed expenditure of $793,368 to continue offering services to those individuals experiencing homelessness. This is funded by a combination of remaining grant funds and interest earnings. Approximately $8.3 million is budgeted to pay debt service. Property taxes from the Rohnert Park successor agency, water and sewer funds and the public facilities financing fee fund provide the monies for these payments.
A total of $68.7 million in expenditures for fiscal year 2024-25 is estimated primarily for capital improvement projects, according to the staff report. Because the Rohnert Park Public Works Dept. currently is working on more than 100 capital projects, the city’s goal for the fiscal year is to focus on completing projects with time sensitive deadlines, such as the renovation of Honeybee Pool, wooden streetlight pole replacements, Hinebaugh Creek path replacement, Sunrise Park Pickleball court replacement, B Section sewer line upgrades and water line replacements in B Section.
“This council has been pretty strong on our vision for the city,” Councilwoman Samantha Rodriguez said. “The residents are seeing it. So, we’re not just talking about it. We’re actually doing it. A lot of these things like creek path replacement and wooden streetlight replacement to me are forms of public safety. And I think it’s just incredible to see the work done.”
Rohnert Park, according to the staff report, will continue its maintenance efforts, such as creek cleaning, street pavement throughout the city, sidewalk replacement, pothole repairs, park improvements, facility repairs, traffic signal maintenance and other deferred maintenance work. Staff will continue working on conceptual designs for the expansion of the Public Works Corporation Yard at the downtown site. More than 10,000 water meters are scheduled to be replaced with smart meters, and a waterline along Southwest Boulevard is expected to be completed in the next fiscal year.
Rohnert Park has four internal service funds, which are the Information Technology Fund, Vehicle Replacement Fund, Fleet Services Fund and Facilities Internal Service Fund. A total of approximately $2.6 million was recommended from the Vehicle Replacement Fund to purchase new vehicles for Public Services, Public Safety and Enterprise Funds. No personnel requests were made for consideration with special revenue funds.
City staff believes special revenue funds and grant funds are essential to operations as they leverage general fund sources. But it also feels a city should not solely rely on such funds to deliver municipal services or address capital needs. City staff, according to the report, has successfully procured millions of grant dollars throughout the years. Staff will continue seeking external funding sources to support programs, services and capital projects but there is no guarantee funding will be awarded, and are therefore not included in the budget request. In terms of future capital needs, a key focus area for Rohnert Park in the next 10 years is addressing its aging facilities and deferred maintenance improvements.
Rohnert Park completed an assessment of its 62 facilities in 2022 that included a complete property deficiency evaluation, propose corrective and maintenance recommendations and estimated budgets for the corrective work for each facility. It is anticipated that more than $40 million is needed to complete the necessary repairs. City staff is working on design plans with an allocation of $1.3 million so certain facilities can be repaired.
