Special City Council Mtg.: Fiscal Year 2023-24 Budget Meeting — May 24, 2023

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If you can take your seat please. seat please. We'll go ahead and get started. Good evening. The City Council of Monterey

Park and the City Council acting on behalf of the successor agency of the former redevelopment agency, the Housing Authority, the Monterey Park Financing Authority, and the Monterey Park Geologic Hazard Abatement District Agenda welcome you tonight. Recording in progress. I'd like to read our land acknowledgement. We would like to acknowledge that the land we inhabit today was once known as the Tomongar, the home of the Gabrielino-Tongva people. We show our respect to the Gabrielino-Tongva people, as well as all Indigenous people past, present, and future, and honor their labor as original caretakers of this land. We commit to uplifting the Gabrielino-Tongva people, invite you to acknowledge the history, and

join us in caring for this land. Okay, we'll go ahead and get started with our flag salute.

If you can please stand.

If you can please face the flag. Put your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Please take your seats.

If we can please have a roll call.

Council Member Lo.

Present.

Council Member Yu. Here.

Council Member Ngo. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Wong. Present. Mayor Sanchez.

Present. We have a quorum. Thank you.

Are there any agenda additions, deletions, or changes or adoptions?

None, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, thank you. Are there any public communications?

Yes, we have one speaker, Molly Rhodes of SEIU 721.

Hello, council members. My name is Molly Rhodes.

I'm a PhD in research and policy, and I am with SEIU 721, representing the gentleman here today.

We're excited to be listening to the budget workshop and see what you have in front of you.

We saw revenues look good. That's excellent.

We're hoping to see revenues in our own family checkbooks coming forward as we negotiate a fair agreement.

For a family, for a single parent with two children in the city, in the LA metro region, you actually need to make $92,000 a year now to pay most of your basic needs. It's a lot. It means people behind that are really far behind. So we ask you to keep that in mind. I noticed in the past you were one of the largest employers in the city, and that's slid off by time because your workforce has shrunk, which has multiple effects. That's not good for anybody. So to attract retention and retain workers, you need higher wages. And you've got now, you've got your Lost wage is actually minimum wage, and it's the state minimum wage.

It's $15.15 an hour, which is Lor than what LA County will be paying in July, which will be $16.90.

So to keep people out of poverty, we need to do better. Thank you.

And in addition to Ms. Rhodes, we received the city clerk's office received seven written communications requesting your support for the SEIU 721 labor negotiations and that you approve the employee's wage increase. Would you like me to read these for you?

Okay.

Good evening, Council Mayor.

My name is Lena Nguyen, and I work in the library as a library assistant. I'm a proud member of SEIU 721, and I am speaking to you, ask that you support us the same way we support the residents of Monterey Park. We have been here throughout the pandemic, but it's getting harder to keep staff here because the cost of everything is going up, except our wages. We have seen record inflation recently, but our wages have not kept up. Our unit is the Lost paid out of the eight units in Monterey Park, and we are facing significant challenges. We are asking you to take our bargaining team's proposals seriously because they are not just us so that we can support ourselves and our families, but so we can continue to do the important work for the residents of Monterey Park.

Thank you.

Next up, dear City of Monterey Park Council members, I am an employee of Monterey Park and a proud member of SEIU 721. I have been with the city for 17 years and counting, 16 of those years spent at the library, and this last year with the fire department. For as long as I can remember, my department at the library was understaffed given all the patrons we served and programs we provided. For years, I was doing the job of two, sometimes three employees at a time. During COVID, I was essentially alone in my department within the library because all our part-time employees were furloughed. Since then, the cost of living has increased significantly. I came over to the fire department last year to have an opportunity for growth, and I came into another department that is also understaffed, where I continue to do the work of two employees. Over the years, I have seen many of my friends leave the city for higher wages elsewhere. I would like to say that the response from management regarding our contract has not been favorable. What we are asking for is not unreasonable. We would like to agree on a contract that shows we are appreciated and valued. Please consider our proposal seriously and give us what we deserve.

Thank you. Jose Garcia.

Hello, City Council and Mr. Mayor. My name is Michael Lee, and I work for the City of Monterey Park as a library technician. I am a proud member of SEIU 721, and I am imploring you to support us and our bargaining team as you decide on the budget approval for the next fiscal year. I started working at the library as a 17-year-old high school student, and 22 years later, I'm still working for the city of Monterey Park. Like many of my co-workers, I grew up and went to school in Monterey Park, and now I am working for the city. There are higher-paying jobs in other cities, but we choose Monterey Park. It's a testament to how wonderful this city is and how much it means to us to serve its community. However, with the long-lasting challenges brought on by the pandemic and inflation, we've been struggling to justify this decision. This isn't a greedy money grab. The truth of the matter is that inflation has been 7% in 2021, 6.5% in 2022, and 4.9% in 2023. And what management has offered us in our contract renegotiations is only a fraction of this. What this means is that we're essentially getting a pay cut every year because of the reduced buying power of the dollar. Even if you don't keep up with the news and inflation numbers, you can fill it in our wallet.

Your paycheck can't buy what it used to at the grocery store, and you have to start making tough decisions.

Do you buy groceries or pay the rent?

How far can I drive without filling up again?

How much longer can you ignore that check engine light? I'm asking for your support by asking management to provide us with a reasonable wage increase and the other things our bargaining team is asking for in the next fiscal budget. Otherwise, I'm afraid not only will the city be unable to attract new talent to fill vacant positions, but that experienced and essential employees who have worked here for decades, who love the city and its community will begin to make that tough decision to part ways with Monterey Park.

Thank you. Michael Lee.

Good afternoon. My name is Deborah Takahashi, Takashi, and I work in the library as a librarian.

I am a proud member of SEIU 721, and I am here asking you to support what our bargaining team is asking for in negotiations. We are the Lost paid of any unit of city workers, and the same small increase we had in the past simply will not cut it this time. We are losing people left and right to higher paying positions across the county. In order to keep providing quality services to residents, we need to be able to afford to live and work here. The cost of rent, gas, and food have all gone up significantly, and we are asking the city to invest in us so we can hire, train, and keep good staff here in Monterey Park.

Please consider our bargaining team's proposal seriously and give us what we deserve.

Thank you. Deborah Takashi.

Hello. Thank you for your attention and support.

I've been working approximately 10.5 years for the Monterey Park community. I'm the city electrician and resident.

I love my job.

I enjoy my civil service to the people in Monterey Park. My feelings toward my coworkers is equal. I'm a service employee's International Union 721 steward and one of the leaders in my chapter, chapter president. In this email, I come to you asking that your leadership

afford us a fair and meaningful contract,

one that shows how much we are appreciated and one that reflects the current situation in our country.

Price of gas is at an all-time high.

Cost of living has increased dramatically.

Rent has gone up, and the city is flourishing behind the city workers' sacrifices.

The city cannot retain workers.

The city cannot recruit workers, and the current employees are picking up the slack.

They're working for two while the city budgets for vacant positions.

Mayor Sanchez, Council Members, please match our numbers. Thank you.

Jesus Hernan.

Toro and I work under Public Works Department Facilities Division as a facilities technician. I am a proud member of SEIU 721 and I'm asking for your support on what our bargaining team is asking for in negotiations. We are the Lost paid of any unit of city workers and the small increase we had in the past will not cut it this time. In my field as a facilities technician,

I frequently get calls that are emergencies related to plumbing, sewer lines that are backed up, HVAC units that are not working,

and other related emergencies that require me to stay after hours. I spend more time at work than what I do at home with my family, and being short-staffed does not help. Please consider the proposal that our union leaders have asked for and match our numbers.

Thank you for your time. Regards, Joel Toro.

Last one.

Dear Honorable Mayor and City Council members, we want to thank the City Council for your guidance

in making this a great city to live and work in. Negotiations are a tough time for both employees and employer, and we understand that tough decisions must be made on how funding is spent and its impact to the city now and in the future.

We ask that the City Council keep an open mind in hearing both sides going into negotiations

and making equitable decisions affecting its employees.

From 2011 to 2023,

SEIU employees have only received a salary increase of 12.5%.

That equates to 1% per year.

We took a 10% furlough for almost three years and started paying 8% to CalPERS

when the city faced financial challenges.

The general employees were there to assist the city.

We are now asking the city to support us general employees. General employees echo the sentiment of the city council in showing appreciation and gratitude for the vital services that the safety units provide to the city and its residents.

We are urging the city council not to forget the important role general employees offer its residents and the public.

In comparison in MOUs throughout the last 12 years, there is a huge disparity in cost of living increase between the safety units and general employees.

It is a group effort of the general employees, safety employees, the City Council, and the community to make Monterey Park a great place to live and work.

Thank you for your consideration. John New.

That's it.

No other comments.

Thank you.

We'll go ahead and jump to our new business item, fiscal year 2023-24 budget.

Is there... Thank you, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council members, Ron Bo, City Manager, and allow me to frame the budget presentation before we get to the actual presentation. I apologize for the little bit of glitch having to do with the videos and the screens. Early this morning we had some problems with the automatic screens and just the videoing. Normally we would not do anything like this that you have before you, but we had to adapt and be flexible and so we have the presentation on this pop-up screen.

Tonight we present to you the preliminary budget for your consideration. Our goal is to bring back the final adoption of the budget at the June 21st regular City Council meeting next month. Our meeting tonight was posted to the public with all documents of the preliminary budget being available to the public as of May 17th, one week ago. As we present the preliminary budget, there will be many common themes between many of the departments such as technology, marketing, public relations, online business, and service strategies are at the forefront to assist departments with overall organizational efficiency and effectiveness. COVID-19 and overall economic recovery remains a goal of the organization. while all along dealing with a recession that continues to lurk in the economy according

to reports of economists.

The American Recovery Act funding known as ARPA will continue to be an aid for one-time costs assisting us with capital projects and core services. Funding needs to be encumbered by December 2024. 4. Measure MP sales tax is projected into the 23-24 preliminary budget and forecasted over the next five years. Over the horizon in 2024, there is a Taxpayer Protection Act, which will impact the forecast of future years should it pass. The revenue estimated of $8 million

dollars per year will no longer be available if this impact if this should pass at the initial

measure mp was to assist us in maintaining services as you recall back in february 2012 and i do know that there are many employees that were here back in 2012 and even 2010 redevelopment agency had officially dissolved by the state including funding cities such as Monterey Park had to make some hard decisions regarding financial cuts in 2010 Monterey Park began layoffs with bumping rights and if we all know

what bumping rights is that means seniority takes place by bumping other people that are less in seniority to take those positions.

2011, furloughs were implemented. This was all part of the City's strategy because of redevelopment agency being dissolved.

Employees were required to take a specific amount of time off without pay.

It was so heartbreaking when an employee came to the city council meeting. And those of you that have been around that long, you can remember we had an employee

beg for his position in front of city council.

He begged because his family were in need of health benefits.

He was on the brink of crying and you could see that it's on the tape.

During this time. I was working in Monrovia. I had to lay off numerous positions. I remembered the comment from an engineering technician, and I know his name. As I delivered the horrible news, what he mentioned to me, he said, I just got married. I bought a house, and we are expecting our first child. Now how am I going to support them? I had literally no words for this individual. All I did was basically cry in front of him because I couldn't explain. These comments are to put everything into perspective. As we continue to negotiate, which in many cases we are in the first round, let me underline, first round of negotiations. Sustainable contracts are what we will negotiate. I would never ever want to deliver horrible news as I mentioned previously again due to sustainability.

Tonight we will present the preliminary budget as the order of the tabs are labeled. In closing, my opening remarks and passing it on to our Finance Director, Martha Garcia,

each and every Department Head and Executive Leadership Team member have collaborated together to bring to you a preliminary budget.

Kudos to Martha Garcia and staff in putting countless hours towards achieving this preliminary budget.

Thank you for allowing me to provide these opening remarks. Martha, it's your show now.

Thank you, City Manager.

Good evening, Martha Garcia, Finance Director, and good evening, Mayor Potem and Council Members. And today I have with me our senior accountant, Terry Kim. He will be handling the PowerPoint. So today's annual budget workshop is for fiscal year 23-24. We will be discussing the budget background, the American Rescue Plan Act funds, staffing changes, citywide financial plan, the general fund reserves, revenues, expenditures, and reserves, and the department presentations.

Then we will conclude with the capital improvement projects.

The city proposed budget for fiscal year 2324 operating debt and capital budget total is 173 million, of which 61.8 million is from the general fund. Proposed budget includes a 6.9 ARPA funds. 1.9 of the ARPA funds is for part-timers. 1.9 is from program carryovers, including the playground equipment. And then a 3.1 is for encumbered purchases.

Total full-time equivalent positions for proposed for fiscal year 2324 is 386.75, with an increase of FTEs, full-time equivalent of five. The budget also includes the recommended median pay through the compensation study that the city had hired a consult to do.

So we have included the median pay for the salaries that were determined that were under medium that's in the compensation study.

We will also be discussing internal service funds, also known as ISFs, expenses, and the addition of the building maintenance fund.

And we will also be discussing our general fund reserves and how this impacts our general fund reserves. First, I'm going to let our council and our public know about our citywide significant changes. So the fiscal year 23-24 proposed budget includes an internal service fund addition that is called for the business maintenance. What this does is this fund is a citywide service, so it's a business type account.

So we've established fund 506 that will serve for the building fund, and other departments will be paying into it.

for that service, and it provides maintenance, it provides upkeep, it provides maybe new repairs, but we've established the fund for next fiscal year, 23-24. This budget also includes the compensation study.

In fiscal year 22-23, the city hired a consultant,

And the study that was concluded has been included in the proposed budget for fiscal year 23-24. And again, it includes the increase to bringing all the titles to median based on the study.

The budget also includes a compensation study for part-time classifications.

This included an increase to salary scheduled to bring part-time classifications to the state minimum wage requirement and adjust part-time hourly rates to address compensation.

So this cost has also been included in the fiscal year 23-24 proposed budget.

Next slide.

So our citywide financial plan is $173 million.

That includes 61.7 general fund, 12.5 rounded up of retirement, 20.4 special revenues that include lewd street bonds.

ARPA is 3.8 that's in the budget. The rest is carryover encumbrances.

We have grants of 3.8, refuse 7.9, sewer 7.3, water is 21.6, internal service is 22.4, street bonds, I'm sorry, I guess the street bonds are separate. Street bonds is $9.1 million, and successor agency is $2.2 million, and that totals $173 million.

The next slide just shows a pie chart of how it's divided, the percentages.

If you notice the pie chart, it's 36% is general fund, monies that are being expensed for next year's budget.

with the and then you have like water is 13 percent that would be the next highest one and

our Lost one would be the successor agency which is 1.3 percent. We are proposing the five the

principal management analyst for the city manager's office.

It includes two police officers for the police department,

one dispatcher for the police department,

one battalion chief for the police department,

two maintenance workers,

and a building trades technician for the building works department

with the reduction of 5.5 part-timers,

and then 2.5 part-time library assistance for the library.

for a total of $840,000 for the proposed fiscal year.

So this is the ARPA funds. As best I can, I was trying to do my best to show how we've been expending

and what we anticipate to expend next year.

So we have appropriated, council has authorized appropriations of 12.1.

of that as of the date that i pulled this report we had expense 6.7 now we haven't finished the

year so that will probably increase we have budgeted for next fiscal year the proposed budget

1.9 million and that is for salaries and for salary staffing for part-timers and a couple of

full-timers and then the carryovers are of other items that have already been appropriated is 1.9

and then we have encumbrance carryovers of 3 million so a total budget for 20 proposed budget

for 23 24 is 6.9 million next we'll be discussing our our general fund

sorry i'll have to go this way so our this is our general fund revenues that we're anticipating

to receive we're our highest is our property tax which is at 35 percent at 22 million dollars and if you see the jump in sales tax that includes our measure mp we're anticipating an approximately $8 million, and that's with the reduction of the payment we have to give to Montebello.

So our net would be $18.5 estimated. And then it goes down all the way to our other revenue, which includes our revenue income,

interest income that we receive. We're anticipating that along with our lease payments and everything else, lease revenues,

we're expecting about $4.7. For a total estimated revenue for a general fund is at $63.4 million for next fiscal year. These are our expenditures for next fiscal year separated by department. Our police is $25 million. Then we have fire at $16 million. Public works at $2.8 million. This is only general fund. library at 2.6, community economic development at 2.9, recreation at 2 million, and then we have general administration at 6.3, non-departmental 1 million, and capital improvements at 2.3 million for a total of 61.8 million. Next slide, please.

so this is the internal service fund expenditure these are only uh general fund i didn't bring over

the other for the full all the funds pay into the internal service um services so for general fund

And the city councils actually dropped by $1,490. City manager went up by $6,000. City clerk went up by $21,000.

Finance went up by $25,000. And all the way down to the recreation that went up by $158,000.

for a total increase to cost of the general fund

for internal services was $1.2 million rounded up.

This includes the building maintenance. So building maintenance came in,

and building maintenance is actually, the cost was about 1.5. So 1.5 of this is building maintenance.

Next slide, please. Okay, so our general fund reserves. So our general fund reserves, we took what was coming in from Measure MP, and that brought us to our revenues being $63 million, with our expenditures being $61.8 million. that's a difference of 1.6 million the 1.6 million surplus will go into reserve so we can

it'll anything that's surplus goes into our reserves whenever there's a deficit it drops our reserves

um my biggest concern so if you see it this way and and based on the compensation setting what's already built in or the items that are built in there we we will have a about a million or so surplus for the four years for next year and the three years after. My concern is if the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act were to pass in November of 24, we would be looking at year 26 to have a deficit of $6.5 million. If you look at the revenue versus the expenditures in year 26. The difference right now with the measure not staying intact, we're looking at a 1.4, 1.5 million surplus, but if the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act were to pass, that surplus would turn into a deficit of 6.5 million without us doing some serious consideration of the types of services we provide.

Some of the other items that I did to try to soften the operational costs moving forward was,

and we'll discuss it during debt service, is we are paying off debt service for the Motorola for the police radios.

If we pay it off next year, then moving forward in year 25, 26, and 27, we won't have that operational cost, so it'll help us with our ongoing expenditures.

We also corrected the OPEV payment for currently active retirees receiving medical. It used to be charged 100% to the general fund. While there are some retirees that work for water or work for sewer, all the funds should be paying for that. So we've moved it to the correct funding source. That's also going to lessen the impact to the general fund. So all this was taken into consideration when these general fund reserves were prepared and expenditures and revenues for the forecast. But keeping in mind that this is with the assumption that Measure MP is not going to go away. Next slide, please. So this is a summary. We'll be also discussing this later on in the PowerPoint details, but this is a summary of our capital improvements. Our capital improvements are $4 million for enterprise, $19.9 million for street construction, $3 million for community capital improvement, for a total of $27 million in capital improvements. and it'll be more detailed further on in the PowerPoint. So the debt service for next fiscal year is $1 million for our sales talks. Those are our street bonds. That's how much we're paying for our street bonds every year. The next one, and I have a green arrow there, is that the dollar amount was incorrect in the budget book. We'll be having it corrected. total cost for the siemens lease is 946,143 comes from the general fund and the other 800,000 comes from uh water and then we have 112,000 for uh the i bank loma highland reservoirs that's another debt that we pay annually and then we have our motorola so if you see our motorola police mobile radios. We're paying it off next year. The reason we're paying it off is so that our operational costs will allow us to have an extra $300,000

every year. So it'll help us with our operational costs

moving forward. Then our HUD

Section 108 loan was paid off in 23. We no longer have that. We'll discuss what we're doing with that money now when we get to our capital improvement projects.

And then we have our pension obligation. We had two. We had one from 2004 and the one from 2021 that's combined. Our total expenditure is $7.3 million. And we have our fire ladder that's about, we're about to pay that one off. It's $420. It's a very low interest rate, but that one will be paid off in 2025. And then we have our San Gabriel Valley Water District loan is for $4 million. There's no interest to it. It's a 10-year loan for $400,000 for a total of $12.5 million of debt service for this coming fiscal year. And that concludes the summary. If there's any questions.

Any questions from Council?

Council Member, you?

Hi, Martha. You just mentioned about the debt services that

among all the debt services, is there anyone that has

a very high interest rate so that we can actually replace them without the debts? The only one that

the highest one we have is the iBank at 4.07.

But it's still a low interest rate. Very low. So nothing we can do. Thank you.

Hi, Martha. For the part-time salaries, I know the projection is to bring them to the state minimum wage. What's the differential, or do you know the differential

between counties, minimum wage, and what it will be next year

and how much higher or not it will be than the state minimum?

For our LA County? Yeah. I know

that I don't have that answer. HR Director,

do you have that answer? Yeah, we will have it.

The state is 15.5 and it's been included.

We also have steps that if we miss the mark, they can move into a higher step.

So they'll never get paid less than whatever the law minimum wage is.

The point I would make is we want to be competitive as we're seeking part-timers and others who are on part-time hourly salaries with everyone else in L.A. County who are employers paying above state minimum wage if we want to attract quality talent, I think, to one of the points that was made earlier, too. If we can look at what that cost differential might be and see how that might bake out into the budget and allow for flexibility for hiring managers to adopt higher than the state minimum wage

for some of these positions.

We will look into it, and then when we come back on June 21st, we will have that information for you.

Perfect. Thank you.

Council member you just mentioned about that the south tax measure currently you know if we can project it we will have about almost 1 million dollar I would say what is that called profit not profit but surplus but if we have that reverse we will have deficit of 6 million. That's correct. So that projection, is that included all the contract, or maybe we can have some contract that be flexible and only limited to the condition if we already reversed the sales document? Is there already set contract, or is that still flexible?

Are you talking about vendor contracts? Right. Most of our vendor contracts has no cost termination, so I think they're all set that way.

So we can definitely cancel contracts

if this were to happen.

Okay, so hopefully that will not be a $6 million deficit. Right, hopefully. Thank you.

That's great.

Yes, go ahead, Council Member Long.

Thank you.

Again, Martha, thank you for that presentation preparing this booklet for us.

I'm also curious, I know all of our surrounding neighboring municipalities

like us are going through a budget process,

but I'm kind of curious too that do we know that if they are also looking at

county wage averages as well?

because I think we want to make sure, too, that we're talking about retention of employees, that we also stay competitive with our surrounding municipal neighbors as well, as well as the county.

It is a common practice to do compensation studies from time to time so that we continue to stay competitive.

Any other questions?

Martha I just had a quick question about the Siemens and Motorola contracts.

Is there a reason why we

if we don't pay it off then you look at the reserves it'll drop uh our surplus and we wanted

to ensure that we could cover the cost of the compensation study so by paying the motorola off it has helped the city uh bring all the classifications to medium median for the from the compensation study so it was to assist that with being able to provide the the increases

Okay, great. Thank you.

And then the compensation study that we did, just to kind of follow up with what Council Member Lo said, asked earlier, does take a look at neighboring cities, right, when we came up with?

It takes a look at neighboring comparable cities. So it's comparable cities because, you know, there's some.

By comparable, you mean?

full service cities, the same population, the same number of FTEs,

maybe the same type of revenues coming in.

It has different variables, but they have to be comparable to our city.

Okay. Thank you.

Next? Next, yeah, please.

Okay. So we're going to follow the book. We're going to follow it in the order.

And the first one is city council. So our total for city council, it's two divisions.

For Division 1101, it's $133,792,

and that dropped a little bit for internal service funds,

and it also dropped because the previous councils had some benefits that new councils moving forward do not, so that's why that dropped. And then we have the Regional Association 1110 Division.

That's 81,000. It's been consistent throughout the years for a total of 212,792.

Next. There's no significant changes to this department.

And the next.

So for the 23-24 major accomplishments for City Council,

are developed a fiscal year 23-24 strategic plan

listing priorities, goals, and objectives,

coordination and implementation of the 22-23 strategic goals and objectives

and focused on fiscal sustainability and adding Measure MP

to the November 22 ballot for voter consideration.

Goals and objectives for 23-24 include coordination and implementation of the fiscal year 23-24 strategic plan goals and objectives.

Continue to help community heal from the impacts of the January 21st, 2023 shooting incident. Establish a permanent memorial for victims of the incident.

And that concludes for City Council. Any questions? Any questions, counsel?

Martha, can you, I'm just wondering for, I guess, page D4, the program number 1101,

the services under salary and benefits, can you give me an example of what those services are?

Which page?

D4. D4.

That's, I believe this is where all of the memberships are paid out of, and I don't have

the list of the memberships.

There is a list.

Do we have the? Well, there's a list.

Yeah, there's a list of regional associations, right, ICA, League of California Cities, under a different program number.

So I'm just curious. Do you see it?

D7?

Oh, here they are.

So this is the cost. So you have Independent Cities Association, League of Cities.

So this division pays for all of these organizations to be members of all these organizations.

Yeah, I know.

So the regional associations part of the City Council budget I see that list So I'm just I don't know if we have an idea of what the separate line item right for Services under the other program budget For City Council what that generally pays or is that like the strategic planning?

I'm just trying to

It belongs to your membership. So you all belong to various different memberships Independent cities contract cities League of California cities. Those are high dollar figures for membership totally. They're probably somewhere in the vicinity about $20,000 for membership uh, so my guess is that's where the uh services are

Are paying out of all right, so that's above and above and beyond the

Preston amounts. Yeah, and then you also have to remember that you're going to conferences right travel we pay travel per dam all that

So the total budget kind of covers a lot of that. Okay. Yeah. So you so as our city manager said division 1101 covers your conferences And you're traveling division 1110 covers a cost for the associations

No, that's helpful. And then you said the

Internal services right that jump is mostly because of the new building, right? It's fun. Okay I have no further questions I actually sorry I do have a question if we were to I know the council is not taking action right if we were to join a new Association say for example the Sangria Valley Regional Housing Trust would that come out of this budget and if we're not If we don't formally join before the end of this year and the adoption of this budget We would just have to come back with the budget modification, right? Correct. Okay. Thank you

Thank you.

City Manager. Mayor, if I may.

Going back to that point, if there are other things that happen throughout the year where Council is considering that there are specific programs or things like the trust that you would like to meet, that you'd like to join or enter into a program, And we amend the budget continuously throughout the year, but we also are conscious on how much we have in reserve and where we're going to take that money from. But that is a policy that you would make as a council.

Thank you for the clarification. You can move on to the next slide.

Okay, the next one is city manager. The city manager division 1201 is for $1,086,000.

The successor agency budget, 1203, is for $2.2 million.

And the media production and communication is for $424,000 for a total of $3.7 million.

The significant changes for the city manager's office includes the economic development division, 1205,

and the business improvement area 1111 are assigned to community development department in fiscal year 2324.

Then a second significant change for the city manager is the addition of the principal management analyst to support the ongoing needs of the city manager's office.

major accomplishments for fiscal year 22 23 include significant progress to the hillside

stabilization of good views abatement project known as gap coordinated response efforts

resulting from the january 21st 2023 shooting incident and provided support to city council

in establishing a city council strategic plan for 23-24.

Accomplishments for the media production include produced original programming for internet streaming

and MPK TV cable broadcasts and began the city website redesign project

to refresh city website design and user interface scheduled for completion in June of 23.

Goals for the city manager's office for 2324 include implement and execute the city's council strategic plan for 2324. Complete hillside stabilization of good views abatement project.

Continue to evaluate current and future city facilities based needs and provide recommendations for variable solution.

Viable solution, sorry. increase staffing to enhance and improve organization-wide public communication efforts and outreach strategies,

and continue to develop community communication strategies and improve the city's website to enhance visual consistency, accuracy, and ADA compliance. And that concludes city managers.

Are there any questions or comments from Council?

Council Member, you?

Yeah, actually for the city manager department, I realized that we removed the economic development and also the business improvement area.

So the two categories will move to a different department, right? Correct. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Other questions or comments? Mayor Pro Tem Wong.

Martha, for this budget, the change, I know it includes the addition of one principal management analyst.

For the salaries for existing staff, what was the projected or assumed percent increase?

For the salaries? For salaries, yeah.

Is it in line with what we are assuming for all the other bargaining units?

I don't know that offhand, but if you look at E5, you'll see salary and benefits for $1,201, and that's $793,000.

It's an increase of about $200,000, $250,000 for $1,201.

And then for $1,203, there's only about a $9,000 increase.

and for 1209 it's a $50,000 increase.

Yeah, I just, you know, I don't need to answer now,

but I just want to make sure it's,

the assumptions are in line with what we're assuming.

Correct. There were some titles that did not have,

they were over the median, so, and I don't know,

I don't remember the specifics,

but it's been across the board. The correction or the increase based on the study

has been applied across the board to all the departments. Thanks.

And then can I ask the city manager or Martha to detail what the idea or goals of the new expectations of the new hire, the new position would be?

currently the city manager's office has myself assistant city manager and an administrative secretary that is the support that we have in the city manager's office and without going into detail we also support all five of you in your endeavors to achieve policies programs and whatever you would like to do individually and collectively also we oversee the operations of

the city that is underneath the purview of the acm any special projects that do not fall in line with the department it falls into the city manager's office when we are asked to coordinate various different events like the one that we are just coordinating now there's an organization that wants to plant many trees in the city. We have to adapt quickly to be able to do that. That gets coordinated out of the City Manager's Office. Whether it's a paper trail or whether it's just coordinating by phone or email, someone has to do that. And that's someone in either the three of us or another person that does that. There are letters that need to be written for you all. There's support letters that need to be done that comes out of our office. So I guess what I'm getting to is this individual will do analytical data processing. They will assist us in doing something that we don't have a lot of support in doing when we're looking at efficiencies and also just trying to get better. This individual will also help us oversee some of our social media all the marketing we talked about marketing monterey park in a different way we talked about certificates we talked about many things that city council wants to do that falls in our office so this position will not only be a principal analyst position but it will be kind of for i don't know if everyone knows this but kind of like a macgyver they pick up all the loose ends and the assistance in getting it done it's not your traditional principal analyst it's somebody that kind of does a lot more than just a principal analyst position I think all of you know what this office does on a daily basis and it's never the same it's different requests it's different problems that we have to solve following through it's a of things that we have to do. If you're asking me to put in some specifics, the specifics change every day.

No, I appreciate that. And I know I want to make the point that I support the addition of this position because I know and I think the public is aware that this council has asked for a lot and continues to ask for a lot from staff. And I think this will help resource that a little bit better.

I know that.

demands on the council and on the city manager's office than there have been historically. And things fall through the cracks because we don't have enough resources to properly respond to everything that's going on. And I think that the shooting that happened in January also laid very bare and very clear to me, at least, the need for a lot more communication support for the council and for the city in

engaging the community.

and I know that those needs will continue for many, many years to come. So I appreciate the city manager and staff recognizing this need

and working to meet it here.

And I'm sorry, but you just reminded me,

we talked about probably doing a better job at PR.

This individual would actually help us in the PR side of it.

We learned a lot from the incident, and I think this is part of it,

and just trying to support all the things that need to get done. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Mayor? Yes.

I actually wanted to just follow up on the Mayor Pro Tem's line of questioning and comments,

but can you also maybe just describe, you know, for example,

when the President of the United States paid a visit to do his analysis of executive order? Did most of that coordination come on the City Manager's Office?

majority of the coordination came from the city manager's office with the assistance of

the police department police chief and a lot from the fire chief so between the three

offices we assisted together on just trying to coordinate all that we also dealt with quite a bit of dignitaries that

very some ones wanted to get invited to the

presidential visit. Road closures, getting the information out, probably pissing a lot of people off that they couldn't make it to the event

for various different reasons. It was a White House event and we continue to do that. Our goal was, and I think everybody in this room that was in the briefing. Our goal was to protect the president, and we did everything within our means to protect the president from the outside of the buildings,

and Secret Service and the White House took care of him inside the building.

And we made a pat between ourselves that nothing will happen to him

while he's here in Monterey Park, and that's what we did collectively. Great, and I think most people probably agree that it was a very well-put-together visitation,

which I think the White House was very appreciative. But because, again, it's really appreciated that there's been so much national attention to the shooting

and there's been a lot of visits by the administration, a lot from the state.

But, again, the point of contact always falls on the city manager's office, right, to coordinate, to be the point of contact.

And in some cases, some of these requests would come just days before, right?

Within the same day, hours before. We definitely had a lot of changes. But needless to say, any support in our office would be appreciated.

I think between the assistant city manager and myself, we would welcome, you know, if council decides that this is the right thing to do, we definitely know that we could utilize the support.

I will also add that we are making up some of this support by utilizing economic development's staff to do some work for us but we do know that economic development has

their own set of work that needs to get done so we can't use their support services very very often okay thank you

Ron I think you guys have practices you had the VP come a few months earlier so you guys had to

practice to get through that stuff first.

I have a follow-up question, Martha. I'm looking at one of the accomplishments. I should go back to the slide you had there. City manager, complete hillside stabilization, good view, gap project.

So I'm referring back to C18 on a note here.

if you flip now to c18

yes i don't know if you can get that on the screen for the folks to follow here this is going back to i think this is going back to a year and a half maybe two years ago when you estimated the cost of Goodville at roughly, according to this, $17 million. Correct. And if I'm reading this correctly, we had expense. So to me, we spent and we paid roughly $6.7 million fiscal year 21-22. That's correct. So walk me through where the rest of the expenses are, what we've spent after that point of time and what's left in the project if you uh change the

page back to c17 you will see that we have i when i was preparing the forecast i looked at the general

ledger and i found that we had expensed and we had some encumbrances that totaled 8.9 million for

this fiscal year and that's why I put down the I recorded 8.9 for fiscal year 22-23 for ending

for to be included in the forecast for for this budget and the remaining 2.4 will be encumbrances

carried over into the next year. Assuming we have to spend the entire 2.4. Assuming correct. Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Next item.

Okay, the next department is the city clerk's department. The city clerk's department's budget is for $602,000, and that's related to the ballot.

Every other year we have a $200,000 cost for items that go to ballot for elections and whatnot.

And so this year, 23, 24, there is no items going to ballot, so that's why you see the drop in expenditures for the coming fiscal year. So their total expenditures for the coming fiscal year is $602,000.

They have no other significant changes other than the part-timers, the comp study, and the building maintenance.

Their 22-23 accomplishments include conducted a general and special election on November of 2022. They implemented a process for digital signature.

They implemented and streamlined the commission's applying process with the creation of an online application,

and they implemented and streamlined the process for the public to subscribe to the city's newsletter.

Their goals and objectives for fiscal year 23-24 include research to revamp the city council certificates and proclamations, policy, and procedures, evaluate and update the city's retention schedule in accordance with laws and regulations,

and research for implementation of an agenda management or document workflow solution to improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness. And that concludes City Clerk.

Any questions or comments? Okay, so if you can... Council Member Ngo?

Yeah, if you could... Thank you.

If you can go to F4, page F4,

Yes.

So you mentioned about $200,000 was used for the election last year. Correct. So that's the $279 minus prior year 53. That's the number.

That's correct. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? Mayor Pro Tem Wong?

Are we fully staffed in the city clerk's office?

We are. We have at least one vacancy.

Currently we have $3.50.

We have a budgeted $4.5, but we only have physically there $3.5.

Is the clerk type part-time or is that clerk type shared?

That's a full-time position.

So it's shared between departments?

No, it's full-time to the city clerk's office.

Oh, the part-time? It's a .5. It's just a part-time person.

Okay. I mean, is there any thought about if there is a need for another clerk typist that's part-time for another department, potentially hiring someone on full-time that could split duties between departments?

That's something that we've looked into. We've looked at sharing.

So we are looking at different options so that we could bring in and hire much easier than we have been struggling in the past.

So that is an option that we are looking at.

Okay, no, I just yeah, I wherever possible would encourage and would love to see us convert part-time

Positions still full-time or find creative ways to do that. I think this is in the current jobs environment. I think a full-time

Job that has benefits Would probably be easier to fill than a part-time job. I agree. Thank you. Thanks

Any other questions or comments All right, thank you The next one is the city treasurer's budget. The city treasurer's budget is for $24,251, and that's a drop because, again, of the new policy for the new elected officials to, the benefits are removed from the new elected officials.

And that's all I have for the city treasurer's office. Is there any questions?

Just really quick.

So the benefits you're referring to are health care and retirement?

Correct.

There was health care, retirement pension. Those are all have been eliminated, and I don't have the resolution number.

So this, I mean, the budget for 2023-24 is for $24,000. So that's salary and overhead.

There is some recurring cost for prior elected officials that are still being paid for, that are still on either our OPEB or other pension or on pension.

So there is still cost to that department from prior individuals, from prior elected officials.

Okay.

Do you know how many former city treasurers were carrying?

I don't have that number, no.

I'm just curious, but okay.

No other questions?

Okay, so the next one is the City Attorney's Office.

The City Attorney's Office has no FTEs.

It's a contracted services, and the total for next year is $722,000.

And that concludes for City Attorney's Office. Any questions or comments from Council?

Martha, do you know what the current, what is our current, I guess, retainer, monthly retainer amount for them?

It's, I think it's in the 20, 24,000 maybe,

but I don't have that number, exact number.

So the other costs above the retainer would be for other services beyond?

Correct.

We also have a, LCW is also charged to that account.

So if we are doing labor negotiations right now, that's what else you would do?

Our attorneys for the labor negotiations are also being charged that account.

So we would, if we wrap up negotiations, say whatever, I know we're in the middle of negotiations,

but we would potentially see budget savings on this in the next budget year if we're not in labor negotiations.

Possibly. Okay.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay, thank you. Can we move on to the next item?

The next one is finance department.

The finance department for finance division 1403,

the estimated proposed budget is $1.8 million.

For information technology is $2.4 million.

For community housing, it's $795,000. for revenue collection.

It's 1.4, rounded up, 1.5 million

for a total of 6.5 million for next fiscal year.

No changes in FTEs. It's at 20.25. Next slide, please. We have no additional significant changes to the department.

and our major accomplishments for fiscal year 22-23 included the implementation we implement

the tyler munis capital asset application we updated our it division updated the citywide internet from 200 mbps to 1 g bps uh it completed the city-wide installation of cameras uh with

with the police department it was it in the police department completed the city-wide installation of cameras that included analytical features and they increased cyber it increased cyber security position for the entire city. IT infrastructure. We had a self-tax rate successfully increased to 10.25 with the passing of Measure MP, and that was implemented in April of 23.

And we have starting June 7th, we've actually

setting up quite a bit of payment plans for many of our residents. Our future goals for fiscal year 23-24 include the implementation salary changes resulting from bargaining unit negotiations. We enhance the utility billing system with payment plan module and continue outreach on low-income assistance programs available to city residents. Continue utility rate study and establish proposed new rates for Proposition 218 process, a spearhead citywide user fee study to determine the true full cost of services provided by all departments, and implement segmentation of network to improve security and upgrade email servers and primary firewall. And that concludes for finance. Mr. Mayor? Yes, Mayor Lo? I'm sorry, Council Member Lo?

Sure. Thank you, Mayor Sanchez.

Martha, a question. On page 12 for the finance department, under community housing assistance,

for the last few fiscal years, it's been consistently around $1 million, and I'm just curious, can you explain the drop to $795,000,

$100,000 for fiscal year 23-24?

Definitely. That is that we paid off the Section 108 loan.

Mm-hmm.

So now the additional funds are in capital projects, which we will get to later on in the slides.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments? Mayor Pro Temo?

So you mentioned the community housing assistance and the programs. I believe we contract with a nonprofit to provide some of those workshops and services.

We contract with the Housing Rights Center to assist us with landlord questions or tenant questions.

And then we also have two consultants, and I believe one of them should be on today,

to help us with the actual program, the CDBG and the home program. and they assist with providing residential rehab loans for some of our low-income residential individuals.

And then they also assist with, they're going to be assisting the police department

with the tenant-based rental assistance and the homeless support services assistance.

And so those programs are funded by CDBG and Home Fund?

so the one the ones under under the the my division which is community housing yes they're

funded through cdbg and home programs is there any general fund or does that no no not at all

is there as we retire or as potentially right there's additional funding if can we look at i would like to look at how to expand those programs and outreach to the community around existing

housing rental renter support and tenant support programs so will you we can discuss it when we get

to the police department there is additional funding that's called uh home arpa that we were

uh entitled to 1.2 million from home arpa that we will be working in in coordinating with the

police department to assist for the homeless to support homeless services and then we also

we're granted the permanent local housing element, which is also for fiscal year. It's for 2019, 2021, I think. And we're going to be receiving $1.4 million.

And that's going to assist with tenant-based rental assistance. So we do have some

programs that we can discuss probably more when we get to the police department because it's their

programs. Okay. I think that'd be great. I think there

there is a need and there's a lot of demand right in the community that we just need to help do a

better job of matching up with the resources that exist yes thank you any other questions thank you

our next one is human HR and risk management the HR and risk management

for program for human resources division 1801 is $1 million.

For 1802 is $663,000

for a total of $1.7 million. They have no additional changes to their budget.

And their major accomplishments for 22-23 are the completed negotiations

with five sworn associations. That was at the beginning of the year. They conducted a citywide classification and compensation study,

and they hired 34 full-time employees and 33 part-time employees and promoted 34 employees.

For 23-24 goals and objectives, they revised the personnel rules and regulations,

evaluate employee training and safety training, and evaluate the safety committee.

And that concludes for HR and risk management.

Any questions from Council?

Council Member Lo?

Yes, thank you, Martha.

On page J3, you know, when you go from the,

I mean, I know the funding source type has changed over the years,

but I'm curious, like, I mean, it's almost a doubling,

and so can you maybe just walk us through how that has evolved in the past few fiscal cycles?

It looks like we have doubled on internal service charges,

so they are paying a little bit more for their services to provide internal service. It's the building fund.

It's IT, workers' comp.

So that looks like that's increased due to that.

And then your general fund, that is, you know, actually let's look at,

we look at J4, it'll really tell us where we're at. J4 looks, you know, that's the whole piece.

That's all of it. So our increases are with internal services. It looks like internal services went quite up. It went 100,000 in 23-24.

And then let me look at the other department. And then the other department, their internal services.

It looks like it's just mostly internal services that have been going up. So we did an analysis of how to allocate internal services, and so it kind of changed in the last two years to properly allocate based on, depending on the internal service, how it's allocated. Like IT is allocated by people. Worker comp is allocated by salaries. So it changed the dynamics of how cost was allocated to departments. But this is all, their charges are all related to their internal service costs. Okay.

And this is related to, you know, upgrades we did internally to our IT systems, right?

Correct. Our IT has gone up a little bit.

Our IT contract went up quite a bit.

but but again this is especially i know during the pandemic um you know because people were staying at home and so this was to essentially uh make it more easily accessible to for services

right given that definitely yes we added uh we had we did we added zoom and that's costly we also added

Adobe because we're doing a lot of electronic now. We're being green so we don't use

a lot of paper. All our signatures are

electronic so everybody that handles

a signature or handling the process of a contract have Adobe readers so that they can do it all

through the system. So there's

a lot of more electronic and more technology

that we're using now that we didn't use three years ago. Okay. Other questions or may I pretend one Martha on on the IT

upgrades Have we

I'm at

We are up to date to all cyber security and

Requirements, I know there is increased threats to to municipal governments and

And especially our essential services, water, and others that require or need to meet newer and evolving standards for cybersecurity. And we are pursuing that, and we've got the proper budget to do that, right?

Correct.

We recently had a CPI audit, and we passed.

We passed. They did.

They tried to break internal firewalls and different networks, and we passed our CPI audit.

So we're currently certified for the next 12 months. Thank you.

And then on HR, have we or are we looking at, so I remember in the last few months we've adopted, continue to adopt the personnel emergency to streamline hiring processes that the city has. Are we looking at permanent changes to streamline hiring processes to just make that more efficient and adapt those to current standards so that we're more competitive in that sense?

We are looking at the administrative policy to make some updates to what is needed for 2023 because it's very outdated.

So we are looking at some updates.

but the emergency we still have quite a bit of a public works positions that are vacant that we

we're still working through that emergency to continue to fill in those vacancies but yeah

we are looking at updating the admin policy to bring it up to date because it's very outdated and that should help us with the hiring

great any other questions okay thank you can we move on to the next one next one is community

Community Development has two new divisions.

So they have economic development and business improvement area.

So Community Development is growing.

We are growing that department. We are.

We've just recently, part of the fiscal year 23-24 budget is to fully fund the director position in that department. so and then we're making sure that they're fully funded so that they can continue to

work in the community and continue to develop it so for planning division their budget is 1.2

million for proposed budget for 23 24 building and safety is 1.8 million for economic development

is $505,000, and for business improvement, it's $89,000.

For a total of $3.6 million for next fiscal year,

their total FTEs are 14.5. There's no additional changes.

And their significant changes are that they've now taken on,

they've merged with economic development,

and they've become one department. So now they have economic development and the business improvement area.

Their community development, their major accomplishments for 2223 include the planning division spearheaded the Going Grain program to develop and implement strategies to address climate change. The building division launched the one-stop building permit center to create a fast and easy-to-use permit process. And economic development division successfully launched the Monterey Park Rewards app to over 2,100 users and 165 participating businesses, generating over 335,000 in local economic activity. Their goals for next fiscal year include planning division will update code to implement city's vision captured in the city's general plan. Building division will further streamline the one-stop building permit center by adding a payment module. An economic development division will promote vitality in the downtown district through a retail development strategy to expand entertainment, dining, retail, and tourism to create a sense of place. And that concludes for community development.

Thank you, Martha. Any questions from Council? Oh, I'm sorry. Council Member Lo? Yes, thank you. Martha, looking at K-4, the personal summary.

So the plan checker, so have we always only had one? Or how many plan checkers currently do we have total in the department?

On K-4?

Yes.

Plan check, we have one.

And it's always been one?

It looks, yes. Okay.

The reason I'm just asking is that, you know, sometimes from time to time,

We as councilmen get emails from residents about waiting for plan check for project.

And I'm wondering, and especially given that the previous department we talked about also investing in IT, but I mean, would you say that there are ways in which we can make plan checking, I won't say more efficient, but especially when we time to time get people who are saying they're waiting for a couple of weeks,

you know, are there ways in which they're...

As you all know, the Community Development Department has been thinned out over the past probably two years. They were underneath the purview of the Public Works Department at one time. We tried that model. That model didn't work very well. We have brought Community Development back as one department. They are now rebuilding their department as we speak.

I would suspect that the department would be able to deliver better service once they're fully staffed. Our newly appointed director of community development has talked about staffing up and the needs that she has.

I won't speak for her. She's at the podium right now. But I would say if we would just wait until the end of the year and see how everything works out first before we start looking at maybe adding any positions.

Okay. And again, thank you, and thank you, Jessica, for coming up.

And so right now you would say that this is what your department needs then?

Absolutely. This is what the department needs. And as we mentioned in our prior accomplishments, we just launched the one-stop building permit center. and I believe we still have some applications under the old system. So as all the new applications start getting flush through the new system, I believe we'll start seeing a lot more improvements to our response time. In addition, although we just have one plan checker, we will continue to have services augmented through consultants to help with our plan check services. so there is the need for one full-time plan checker but you're right with the one plan checker cannot do all the amount of plan checks that are needed so to augment that work we are going to keep consultants to help us with that and currently are we engaging those consultants

that we speak or is that something that we we intend to do so we currently are using consultants

right now because we have a vacancy in the plan checker position. We intend to fill the position in this upcoming fiscal year.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Other questions? Council Member Ngo.

Martha on K-3 on the funding source and type.

K-3, you there? Okay.

Under funding source and type, general funds. So we're basically jumping from, well, it's a change of about a million dollars from last year to this projected year. Walk me through what the changes are.

Sure. $500,000 is economic development that has been brought over,

and the rest is salary increases based on the compensation study and internal service fund costs

that have increased the general fund cost.

Thank you.

Mayor Portemont Martha So I know we're currently well one are we currently fully staffed? For all these the FDs. I believe that we

Know we have some vacancies that we're still working on

Okay, and then so the vacancies we have we're utilizing Contractors correct fill needs Do we anticipate as we fill the full-time positions that there will be a net savings with converting from contractors and consultants to in-house employees?

There should be, yes.

And we've baked that into the budget proposal?

We did. We took into consideration how soon it would take to fill in a position to determine how much budget for a contractor.

I would also add we are still feeling out the process for ADUs.

We have been bombarded with ADUs, and we're just trying to figure out what that model would look like,

whether we're just getting a high turnover or not high turnover, a high application process with ADUs,

and whether it's just something that we're plugging in with a consultant over this rise in ADU requests. And or is it going to be a long-term process just having a lot of 80 use because it's more cost effective for homeowners To add 80 use to their home. We're still evaluating that I know I've had conversations with Jessica about that on What you know, what's the best way to handle that but we're working our way through that right now That's that's really the biggest thing is 80 use

I know I remember back to the house the Our housing element report a few months ago, right? Most of the at least during the pandemic Uh most of the new housing units added in the city were adus do we anticipate? I mean to your point ron we're anticipating that growing even more than the last few years

Yes

And then do we i'm on that point have we looked at or are we considering potentially other ways to streamline ADU permit approvals, pre-approving designs or other kind of methods we can do to help streamline on our end, but also on homeowners who want to add ADUs to make it easier for them to receive the permits?

Yes, that is one of the issues that we have received from people that are applying for ADUs,

about just how quickly we can move it through.

We understand that LA County has a template of ADUs that you could use, ADU plans that you could use.

That is something that we've been looking at to see how quickly we can turn that around.

But that is still fresh for us on accepting something that another agency has already kind of pre-approved.

We're working through that. If it works out, that's definitely one way to get it done quickly.

Yeah, and I appreciate that you guys, that staff is looking at that. I'd love to encourage that and see how we can accelerate the development of that project or that kind of work. Just to make it easier as we have to strive to meet these aggressive housing targets that the state has on us, ADUs are, I think, a relatively easy and painless way to help meet that.

Understood. 100%. Actually, Mr. Mayor, actually, as a follow-up question,

given that we are anticipating more ADU permits to come in and because we also have our housing element obligations

can we explore either partnerships

and maybe this goes back to partnering with the housing trust

or even the county or the state

are there programs that encourages people

if they're applying for an ADU permit to also incentivize the ADU unit to also be affordable.

And why I bring this up is because, you know, I've read, and I know I hate to always do between a city like Los Angeles with $4 million and a much bigger budget than us, but my understanding is that in larger municipalities, they have programs, or at least maybe they partner with nonprofits or other organizations to try and incentivize people, especially if they have to borrow to finance an ADU, but to also be able to, when the project is completed, be able to also make sure that it's affordable as well.

And I only think that a bit because, again, not only do we have these expectations,

But I think that also, I think also it's important that we try and find ways to also meet our

housing element goals of providing affordability. I think a lot of us on this council, we care about equitable affordability of housing in the community.

we will definitely look into that but i will also just put a caveat in it that when we're dealing with adus adus aren't always something that they're going to rent this is a more inexpensive way for a homeowner to expand on their house for a in-law quarters or i think we used to call it back in the granny flats yes

So this allows them to expand without really having to do some serious structure changes. So I think we have to look at some of these data used differently than just thinking that they can be converted for affordable housing.

So we just have to look at it. We hear you loud and clear.

Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you.

Martha, on K3, the funding sources by type. special revenue, is that just developer fees?

Special revenue can be, it could be developer fees,

but there's other, there's different types in there.

I think there's some measures that are in there

that are being used also for special revenue.

so i mean if if we see large developments come through in the city that especially that revenue fund would go up we would

expect that to go up because of developer fees correct and that would match the amount of work

that we'd have to do to prepare for this it should yes and then for uh right the county's measure h

I believe there's a local Is there a local return element to that?

We don't get any Measure H.

We don't get any Measure H money, but we are paying everyone who shops at Hawaii Park pays

sales tax to support Measure H. Correct.

Is there a reason we don't have any local return money?

I don't know the reason. I can look into it

but since I've been here in the past three years we've never received it.

But I can contact the county to find out why we're not

Receiving it or if we're eligible for it

Yeah, well, yes, I would like to find out why we don't receive

Because we do have

People that need homeless services in the city

But that would that be under community development or a different department it could follow it depends

It could fall under the police department has several programs that they could use the funding

it could fall under a my department which is housing so it just depends on on on the

what we can use the money for so I'll have to do some research and get back to you

and then this the the on k-17 the bid budget that's also approved separately right in terms of at least the charges and the revenue that's generated?

The revenue, there's no general fund to that.

So the revenue coming in from the bid

is the same revenue that's used for the $81,000 expenditure.

So it's a self-sufficient fund.

It's a self-balancing fund. It takes care of itself.

No further questions. Any other questions or comments? Thank you, Martha. We'll move on to the next one.

The next one is the police department. Okay, so the police admin bureau is 4.8 million. Traffic bureau is 2.3 million. Field services is 12.8 million. Investigations is 3.1 million. Animal services is 393. Communications is 4 million. Jail is $772,000. Records is $1 million. Computer services is $665,000. Community engagement is $1.8 million. For a total budget for the police department of $31.8 million.

For next year's proposed FTEs is 129.5 FTEs.

Next slide, please.

The police department's significant changes include the $1.5 million for years 2012, sorry, 2019, 2020, and 2021 for the permanent local housing allocation, the PLHA program, funds from the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

The department intends to utilize a PLHA program funds to assist persons who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness, including without limitation, providing rapid rehousing, rental assistance, supportive case management services that allow people to obtain and retain housing.

The department is also hiring, proposed to hire two additional police officers and one additional dispatcher.

Major accomplishments for 22-23 include the implementation of the Interagency Communication Interparability System, ICI, and the implementation of IA Pro and Blue Team.

Police Department 23-24 goals include continue to research and implement new technologies

that increase organizational efficiency, transparency to the public, and effectiveness.

and research and implement innovative approaches to recruit and retain personnel using social media platforms and community outreach, emphasizing the recruitment which reflects our unique community dynamics. And that concludes for the police department.

Thank you, Martha. Are there any questions or comments?

I have a question. We're adding three new, I'm just calling generally three officers.

Where are we with staff today? I don't know the fire the police department where we're at and our police chief will come down here. Good evening. Is your question related to sworn personnel on sworn personnel?

I'm just looking from the standpoint of do we have any vacancies?

Are we at staff?

Do we have vacancies where we're looking to fill that we haven't filled because of whatever reason?

We have vacancies in all the different divisions, and we're currently working with HR to try to fill those vacancies. We have officers in different stages of the hiring process right now, and it's a continuous basis.

I have officers that are in the academy. I have officers that are preparing to go to the academy. I have what's called a lateral officer, which is someone who doesn't need to go through the academy, and we're processing them.

That's a continuous basis.

The same thing goes for dispatch personnel, records personnel, our community service personnel.

Basically, all divisions of the department were constantly in a recruiting mode.

we've become very effective in this

and aren't experiencing some of the setbacks that other agencies are in trying to find and recruit quality employees

we actively are doing this on a daily basis and getting quality people into our department

Other questions or comments?

Council Member Lo

Thank you Mr. Mayor

Chief Files, again thank you for being available

I'm just curious, under L14, I'm looking at the projected for persons injured.

Again, this is projected, but I'm just curious, how did we come up with the figure of 288 as projected? I know we're already into 2023, but I'm just curious, is that based on trends that have already occurred in the year?

I'm just curious. On our traffic collisions? Mm-hmm. It's a, basically, we watch the trends as they've occurred over the different years,

and it's a difficult process to predict how many people we're going to end up, will be injured in a traffic collision. It goes with any kind of criminal activity.

It's hard to kind of put a number on it, but we try to, based on statistical information from years past, if we see significant changes, we add those in there,

but we have seen an uptick in injuries involving traffic collisions. I don't have a reason why. There's probably studies that are done throughout the country

with the NITSA and the other organizations that deal with traffic injuries, but it's based on statistical information from years past, and it's an estimate. Okay.

Now, I just find interesting because, you know, for 22-23, estimated to be 257 and then for 23, 24, 288. And I know as per your ongoing goal, the objective is to conduct presentations to the public as well as identify collision locations.

You know, I'd only ask that, you know, given these statistics,

I mean, if your department needs more resources, I think that probably, you know traffic safety is probably one of the main issues that i think all of us often get

contacted about so traffic safety is a is a huge importance for us when i look at how officers are

deployed and how we deal with certain situations it's not just a a police department in a in a

vacuum it's all the city departments working together so when we deal with a traffic safety issue. I'm also dealing with public works and other divisions in the city to help solve these problems because it typically is not just an enforcement situation. It could be engineering. It could be a lot of other things. It's a lot of public outreach that we do. Personnel-wise, I have to take those things into consideration also. The fact that there are other city departments that have needs, the same as the police department does, but we focus on traffic safety quite a lot,

And we've put a lot of emphasis in that over the years in reaching out to our partners around us and to state and sometimes federal agencies to help us understand why we see the trends we do. So we're constantly working on that. And we go and do a lot of outreach in the schools. As kids get older, they become citizens that are out in traffic. And if they have an understanding of the importance of that, that helps reduce those too.

So we do a lot of public outreach. Thank you.

Ashley, what I have you to achieve, what's actually more interesting to me here is trend that in 2022, 23, those trends actually went backwards from 2021, 22. But now it seems like COVID is definitely behind us now and everything's back to normal and above.

Yes. And that's for everything. That's not just for traffic safety. That's for all aspects.

People are, they don't want to stay home anymore.

They want to go out, and with that, when you're out of your house,

there tend to be bad people that want to come into your house and take your things.

So we're starting to see an uptick in that also. And that's not just Monterey Park. That's a regional problem.

And that's tied into public safety and tied into justice reform and things like that.

Council Member, you?

Hi, Chief. When I look into the department budget summary, that I think one department really, actually on L5, one department that really stands out, which is, I think, the communications. And that budget and also the previous, I had my last year budget here as well, is actually from 1.6, 1.7, 1.7, 1.8. And then all of a sudden that we budgeted $4.04 million. in just budget. And then when I look into, but I don't see you have a, you know, dramatic increase of headcounts. And then when I look into the Department of Communications on L26, then actually the increase is actually from a debt service. So would you be able to explain that? I can explain that. That is a big, huge $2 million up.

Council Member, you, I can explain that. That is a one-time cost to pay off the Motorola debt service. We're going to be paying that off next year, and then that line item will go away for $24, $25.

So that's how we budgeted, I think, for police, that we see a huge $5 million up for this year's budget. So you mean there's $2 million will be gone?

Once we pay it off next year, the following year we will not have that cost.

okay okay good thank you any other questions mayor pro temo yeah uh kind of along those lines so i'm

just looking at l5 again the budget summary um right there's significant cost escalation 23 to 31 million 8 million so 8 million net increase i know some of that is adding three new positions and then you just detailed some 2 million of that is the paying off of the motorola costs as a one-time. Can you detail what the rest of that $8 million net increase would be?

It's the compensation study, and the new internal service fund police is paying an additional

close to half a million for just the building fund. And so it's internal service funds,

compensation study, and the Motorola payment that's creating this increase.

that so that internal service fund for building maintenance is that a standard amount per head

count or how is that I'm just trying it's based on square footage okay of how much they currently use

yeah and then um so the net team right is under community engagement is that right yes

uh and is this looking at increasing the budget for the net team at all the net team

responsibility as you all know is is to deal with significant issues in the community primarily they deal with homelessness that team is going to be primarily responsible for the PLHA money that's coming in we'll work with finance

in our and our partners to come up with strategies of how to administer that the The money's broken out over multiple years, if I'm correct. And depending on the requirements of the federal grant and what it allows for, we're still in the process of creating a plan right now and how we're going to administer those funds. We look at engaging as many people in the community that are either homeless or have the potential to become homeless, and that starts with obviously community engagement, letting people know we're available for that, and creating a process. We are in the process right now of doing that and have been working at it actively since you approved that in one of the recent council meetings. So we've been working through that process right now. I don't have an answer of what it's actually going to look like 100% yet, but we're working to a goal of that. We'll have that for you as soon as I can get it.

So all the housing-related funds that are going into the police department budget, that all goes towards the NET team?

Well, the NET team isn't funded by it. The NET team is responsible for administering it.

They have the pipeline into the community, so to speak, to deal with on a boots-on-the-ground basis.

But it won't be just a police department project.

it'll also incorporate all the different divisions in the city that that'll help us manage that so

so when the net team engages a homeless person on the street and we want to give them a voucher or whatever for right that would come out of that the housing fund yes potentially yes at least what else does the what other kind of services does the housing funds i guess provide i'm just

trying to get a so there's a few services that it can provide and uh it has a temporary housing i

believe we i believe the program allows for up to six months payment of rent uh and there's other

for any at-risk individuals that are about to be evicted it allows for um for like a shelter

emergency shelter, and stipends for whatever housing needs they have. They might need bedsheets or something. But it allows for that.

The funding for that was put into the police admin.

It's not being used for salaries. It was not budgeted for salaries. It's sitting there strictly for services for our community. And we need to spend the $1.2 million first of the home ARPA because that will go away in December of 2024. So we're going to work quickly to disseminate that into the needs of the city for our homeless. And our NET team and my consultants that are assisting the police department, we're going to work together to make sure that we quickly develop the program, we quickly go out and use these funds out into the community.

Mayor, if I may. One of the hardest things that we come across in trying to find transitional housing or housing for homeless is having a bed. Beds are very hard to find across the county. We have talked about trying to create some type of housing or beds for our transitional homeless. We talked about maybe utilizing some of this money to voucher our own motels that are here. and somewhat leasing out those motels, that is still in the infant stages. We have a goal of trying to have some type of agreement with a hotel or motel inside Monterey Park specifically for these homeless, but it's still in the infant stages. Also, I want to add in there, we have to pay for cleanup of these areas. It's not something that public works can do thoroughly. They do the best they can, but you're dealing with some pretty nasty stuff in some areas. So we hire a specific cleanup vendor that we have on call that utilizes their environmental services to be able to clean it up. That comes out of this funding, and that's not a cheap cost. That's very expensive. So I just want to add those two elements in there as we're talking about this. Thank you.

I appreciate that.

How, Chief, how does the, how does that, our current funding and those that spend, right, connect with or align with, right, LASA and county spending on services, is are we spending that money because we can't get them into the coordinated care system for LASA and the county, and it just falls on us to pay out of our pockets?

Yes. Okay. Absolutely.

And do you know how, I mean, how is there kind of a general breakdown

of how much county does cover versus how much our funds are covering of the needed services in the

city? I don't have the exact breakdown. I know typically LASA and the county services that come

out to the city, and they do come out on a weekly basis and try to engage with our homeless. They

are very limited on their abilities to be able to house people, and they have not been able to create

and says, yes, I want services, LASA then puts them into a system, and eventually they come back around when they're available to get them placed. That doesn't work. Homeless people are very transient in how they move. They're hard to track. They're hard to keep track of sometimes. And what we've found is effective. We come out with our wraparound services, and we gain their trust, which takes a little while. But once we gain their trust, we're able to offer them the services they really need, and we can get them those services immediately. That's what these funds are going to help us with. Currently, the City of L.A. and the county doesn't have that ability. So we have to do it ourselves here if we want to be able to deal with this crisis locally in Monterey Park.

I'm sorry, Council. If I may also add, don't jump off the cliff yet. they have hired a new executive director that is making some serious changes in Lhasa that I was sat in a meeting probably three months ago and they're definitely making some changes but we haven't seen the results of those changes yet but I expect something a lot better than it used to be. I hope so as

well fingers crossed. Yes Mr. Mayor I think I actually have a follow-up question

which is actually a follow-up to an earlier question and comment.

If we had access or were granted a measure H funding,

would it cover some of the costs that we are incurring?

I would have to learn to understand what the measure allows for expenditures.

I don't have that answer.

Of course, of course.

And I know you would follow up.

But I think what we're hearing is also that, yeah, I mean, if we are paying into a system, I think it's important that we try and get our fair share. And if we have to, you know, contact our county representatives, then we do so.

So otherwise, yeah, I mean, this is incurring into our own, you know, funding as well.

That's correct.

Right now we have some funding for our homeless and for these projects that we're trying to identify how we're going to spend it. The ARPA, the Home ARPA is a one-time funding.

The PLHA might be, we don't know if it's going to be recurring or one time.

Right now it's for 2019, 2020, and 2021, and it's close to $1.4 million.

And so right now we have that funding that we need to first work in developing the program so we can start assisting our homeless.

The one for Measure H, I'm not aware of, if anything, we may be eligible for a fraction of it. We wouldn't get the whole amount like we do with Measure M and Measure R.

We don't get the whole amount that's collected from the city. We just get a fraction of what's collected from the city.

so I will look at to

I will contact LA County to see why we're not getting it and what we need to do to be able to receive it as well

and how much it would be so that we can start incorporating

it into the police department's budget so they have more funding for these services

in the future. Alright, thank you.

For the NET team, is Is everyone on the NET team currently a sworn officer? Do we have any civilian staff?

I have three full-time officers that are police officers. One of the new positions I'm asking for is a NET team officer, so there will be four. I have a sergeant that manages the team. He's sworn. I have a detective assigned to the team. She's sworn. I have a civilian housing coordinator, and we hired her away from LASA.

She coordinates services, housing, any kind of available assistance to our homeless

and the people that we think are going to experience homelessness. She coordinates all that because she has this deep understanding of how LASA works.

She also has access to their systems, which benefits us quite a bit, that she has access to those systems.

and we have a we're lucky to have a full-time mental health clinician from the county of los angeles assigned here embedded with our team and he's here on a daily basis and he helps us deal with the mental health issue which is a huge part of dealing with homelessness have we seen

with our homeless i don't know if there's a rough breakdown right in terms of mental health being one of the key factors versus drug use and fentanyl. And I'm curious, part of that question and a separate question is, right, I keep reading about fentanyl overdoses and use skyrocketing throughout the state and in the region. I'm curious what those levels are here and what we're seeing in Monterey Park as well.

We have had some fentanyl incidents. The fire chief might be able to help with that when he's up because his paramedics will come out on those.

Drug dependency, mental health, homelessness is intertwined. I feel pretty comfortable telling you that people that are experiencing homelessness within the 90 percentile have a mental health issue and probably are addicted to some form of drug that go along with that. And our mental health clinician that's with us helps us understand what some of those breakdowns are. And he has access to the county system as well as our housing coordinator. And with those wraparound services, we can find a lot of things. The number one need in the county, not just for Monterey Park, but the entire county, is mental health beds. That is the number one need. And bar none, if anybody asks you from anywhere what the need is, it's mental health beds. If we could find mental health beds that we could get some of our people into, that would help them get back on track and they probably wouldn't become homeless. But it's very, very difficult to find those mental health beds.

So in the absence of enough mental health beds and homeless shelters, when the NET team encounters a homeless individual or an encampment, if they want services and housing and there aren't any, what's the result of that?

So we start with trying to find, and it's an immediate process. We begin right then and there. The officers are specially trained to start reaching out to the different partners that we have throughout the county to find a bed for them, depending on what their need is. Everybody's a little bit different. Some have vehicles, some don't. Some are, there's cultural issues. It really depends. Those officers begin the process, and then we bring in our homeless coordinator, and if we have to, we can temporarily house them as long as they meet the requirements that we have for that temporary housing, and it's temporary. We basically, our homeless coordinator becomes a caseworker for them, and we continuously try to find permanent solutions. It could be that we contact the Veterans Administration. They're a vet, and we work with them. It could be that they have some cultural issues that they want to go to a homeless shelter that deals specifically with what they're comfortable with. They have significant drug problems, and we need to find a drug rehab center for them. That process begins immediately upon contact, as long as that person is willing to cooperate with us. we then will physically take them to where they need to be will help collect their stuff and the city then continues that relationship with them until that we hand them off to the the parenting agency that's going to help them in the long term unfortunately we see a lot of those people return to the city they may be gone for a few days to a few weeks to a few months and then they just reappear. And we ask them why. And it's that it didn't work out there. There were too many rules, whatever the reason. And they feel safe here in Monterey Park. And then we start the process again. And we continue this revolving door of trying to get people help. It's not going to end anytime soon, nor are we going to stop trying to help people.

Do you know, I don't know if this latest homeless count, the numbers are out. I don't know if we have. I don't know if they are yet either. Do you know what I'm forgot? Someone asked me the other day and I didn't know the current homeless count, I guess the latest homeless count that we have.

Do you know? I don't have an exact number. I it's within the hundred range in Monterey Park. It's pretty significant more than you would think. Um, we don't have a skid row here. So our homeless

tend to stay in the shadows and they become a part of society that you just kind of,

you just accept them as being there. We don't, we see them as what they are human beings that need help. So we have an intimate relationship with most of them, but we do see a big increase as

they come in from East Los Angeles. Some of them come here because we're really good at what we do.

They tell us that, and they feel safe here.

We then, they become part of our service group. We need to get them help.

Great. Thank you.

Kind of changing, switching gears, is there funding in here, or do we need to add funding for revitalizing the Neighborhood Watch programs?

I don't know yet. I don't believe so. In other words, we've begun the process of rebuilding it, and it's from scratch, quite honestly. We contacted, after that one council meeting where we discussed it, we reached out to the neighborhood watch block captains,

and there were only like seven left that wanted to even be involved in the program out of over 100. So now we're in the infancy of going to these neighborhoods, and we're trying to come up with a strategy to encourage people to become part of the program. Some of them, we're going to start reaching out to people that have unfortunately been victims of crimes and ask them if they want to help create a safe environment for their city and their neighborhood. Door-to-door is what it's going to come down to, and through the use of social media, which we're getting better at, I think our current number, we have like 9,000 folLors, which I've been told is pretty good. My daughter thinks that that's good at least. But we're trying to increase that as much as we can because we really do, we benefit from the program. But it's an individual community involvement that we have to kind of sell them on.

And I have to say, and we've started to learn this, some people are still a little bit COVID careful. They don't want people coming into their homes unless they have to. So as the weather starts to get better, we're going to move some of those programs out into the street and literally set up pop-up neighborhood watch programs. Put up our easy up, park some cars, and when people come out and say, what's going on? We're going to say, well, we're here to kind of bring the neighborhood together and talk a little bit about public safety and create these pop-ups. It's happened. It's worked well in other communities in Southern California. We want to try and see if it'll work here.

I would love to encourage that.

And one, kudos to the police department and the rest of the CTA, but particularly the police department that have been ramping up significantly in the last few years, communications and community engagement efforts in the community and rebuilding that trust. I think with COVID and shutdowns, I think a lot of public services and public agencies started, to those relationships are to deteriorate and appreciate the efforts that your department and everyone at the city have been doing to help reestablish those relationships in many ways. And I think that's helped to build a lot more trust in our staff and in the police department. On the kind of neighborhood watch, I would encourage you to give some consideration as we go towards the final budget to see if there is a need for resources. I would imagine at least some as we try to ramp up neighborhood watch programs. Just as I'm imagining, if we want to recruit volunteers, maybe we can provide them actually some resources that might cost some money to do that.

We'll definitely look at that.

And then on that, is the funding for National Night Out out of the police department budget,

or is that a different?

No, it's currently in our budget.

It's already budgeted.

It's already budgeted in there. It'll be August 1st, Tuesday night.

It's going to be epic. Yeah. Epic. I believe you.

One idea is you're talking about neighborhood watch programs and ramping that up in the different neighborhoods. One thing I would love for us to explore and would love to see is bring National Night out in events like that so that they're not just centralized for the entire city but actually in different neighborhoods have opportunities for people to be able to walk to them. and not have to drive just the city hall throughout the city, if that needs to be resourced properly to take through that as well. And if it's not nationalized out other opportunities, if it is the pop-up kind of neighborhood watch programs, I think it would be great to help bring what we are talking about into actual individual neighborhoods as opposed to making them come to city hall.

No, I agree. And we think that the pop-ups will begin that process.

A lot of resources are going to come to bear on August 1st. A lot of components within the police department are going to be there on display, and we're going to do some really cool stuff.

But it would be hard to break those out over, let's say, the five beats in the city at one time because I don't have the ability to stretch those resources and to really make it something that I think would be worthwhile.

The pop-up idea would encourage the community to kind of come out of their houses and engage with their neighbors.

I mean, that's really what the Neighborhood Watch program is all about.

It's bringing neighborhoods together and actually introducing them to people that are two doors down that they may not even know. And they're only two doors down.

supermarkets. And I mean, it's, it's really that simple.

It's almost like the coffee with a cop concept, but it's just a pop-up.

So we will be looking at those things.

No, I appreciate that.

And I think that would be great to see more of and to help, right.

So encourage neighbors,

actual residents to take it upon themselves, right. They are critical to ensuring safety. We can't have a cop in every, on every street at any time. So the more we can do to think through that I appreciate that you're already thinking through how we can bring Right that safety element and that responsibility to share that with with actual neighbors I think councilman will ask

If yes, we need to take a break pretty soon, but but but go ahead and ask your question

Well, thank you. Actually, um

thank you again actually that was very very um useful information regarding the neighborhood watch program but actually i i had asked i wanted to ask a question going back to um your report on on how we address homelessness services but um do you find it challenging or maybe not if you're saying that because again you know homelessness knows no boundaries but if you're saying that uh part of the challenge is that you know because um they're coming from say the county or the municipality is a challenge in articulating or integrating or coordinating

these responses as well? Coordinating is always a challenge. Our net team officers have a

very drilled down expertise on the services that are available and they amaze me on the on the amount of resources that they have access to and that they can pull out of the top of their memory with whatever the problem is. I think I've said before, they're master puzzle makers.

They love a puzzle. They love getting a challenge of a homeless person that may have multiple issues. They love trying to solve that problem. And we give them the time and the resources to be able to do that because we're looking for a successful conclusion. That does require coordination, but our relationship with local partners, with county partners, with state

partners is very, very robust. And basically when they see our number come up on their phone, they answer the phone call. And we've done that through basically establishing trust, not with the homeless, but with these different people in the community. To give you a real brief example is Caltrans. we have developed a relationship with our local Caltrans area to where it's a it's a true partnership okay good um they help us we help them and we get things done because of that

relationship with Caltrans okay no no that's good that's good because I know I know that's an issue I know some of them have been it's been brought to our attention especially if I'm mistaken the

Pomona Freeway yes right okay thank you thank you police you for answering all of our questions I

I'm just going to ask one very simple one. Is your community engagement team fully staffed?

We are in the process of hiring another part-time person that would be primarily focused on social media. It's a new thing for us, and we see that really the best way to communicate with the community is through social media. we want to hire somebody that we can focus on that and give them the equipment they need to to reach out through the different platforms so we're in the process of filling that position right now there are some mandates that are coming through that have come through from the state of california through post that deal with police officer training so we've had to move some people around to be able to, I had to take somebody from records, put them down in CSB to help my new training sergeant who

I had to pull from another position to manage training so that we could deal with some of the things that come through with SB2 and the training requirements. But social media, I'll tell you, is a huge focus

of the police department and we are going, that person will be responsible for the social media platform. So yes, I'm trying to fill that spot right now. Okay. Thank you for that.

I know Robert is very good at social media.

Part-time position, Robert, if you're interested. No uniform.

Mr. Mayor, if you'll indulge me. On that point, if I can follow up, are we looking for social media? Are we also looking at how to engage on Chinese and others?

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You've met my Chinese detectives.

They're very immersed in that because their parents use different platforms than they use.

We are looking at all of those. Some of them are very difficult.

Part of the reason is that we're the police, and that makes it difficult to get on those platforms.

Yeah, and to that point, right, as we look at expanding and growing the Neighborhood Watch Program, I think those are non-police officers, non-city-based staff that we can potentially leverage to engage on other social media outlets to help disseminate information, to feed back information to the police department appropriately.

I think one of the ideas that came up with Council that I think is really good that we're going to look into is

there are local social media influencers and reaching out to them and having them help us reach the communities that they work with um that's something that i didn't really think about

but it's there it's it's at the kid level it's at the high school level it's at the college level it's at the adult level i mean i look at myself as a social influencer but uh maybe not on on

social media, but that's what we're going to try to reach out to next. They're out here in the community. They're willing to help us. We just have to find them and kind of engage their help.

I heard Ron Bo is a budding social media influencer, so maybe some lessons from there.

He's going to handle our Facebook.

Really quickly, I don't know if you'll have an answer to this, but are we thinking through care court implementation for LA County? I know that's going to start rolling out later this year in terms of the mental health services. I don't know what role a city would potentially have in that process.

I'm not sure either. Something that our NET team is looking at and our mental health, our embed from mental

health is part of PMRT and is part of that process.

So I think that we're ahead of the game because we have that person embedded with our department

and he'll be able to reach out to those services if we're able to use those.

Yeah, no, I would just the point I would just make with that is I I at least and I think the rest of the council would be Interested in getting updates as care court implementation rolls out in LA County

What role the city and the net team and others are hopefully will be part of that and I'll be able to give you those updates great Thank you. You're welcome

That is it. Thank you We'll go ahead and move on to the next presentation the next section fire

The next department is fire department.

The fire admin expenditures are $1.3 million. Fire prevention is $1.2 million. Emergency operations is $11.7 million.

Emergency medical is $4.3 million.

Community risk reduction is $797,000.

Code enforcement is $677,000 for a total of $19.4 million.

with one added battalion chief and full-time positions at 65 full-time positions. The fire's significant changes include the addition of a 4th Battalion Chief

to assist with managing the increasing demands of the fire department

and an addition of the purchase of a rescue ambulance.

Their 22-23 major accomplishments include hired three new firefighters, bringing staffing to 100%, expanded technical medicine program in conjunction with the police department, conducted sound the alarm community event in partnership with the American Red Cross. Nearly 400 residents participated, and over 260 fire alarms were installed. Completed the EOC activation training for EOC staff, successfully deploying the mass notification system alert sense during the 2022 Great Shakeout. And then another accomplishment is received $200,913 in local and federal grants for the fire station 61 upgrades.

The goals for next fiscal year include research and apply for additional industry-specific grant funding to enhance public safety services and equipment in the community and region, improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency, digitize fire prevention plans and records management,

evaluate a PABLS ambulance expansion program to supplement our ALS ambulances, evaluate, update, and train employees on the city's emergency process and procedures, which include the emergency operations plan and the local hazard mitigation plan, and improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency as required by state mandate. Each local jurisdiction that employs a code enforcement officer will evaluate risk, threats, and hazards applicable to the city's code enforcement officers and develop appropriate safety standards. And that includes fire.

Any questions or comments from Council?

Council Member Ngo.

I have one for the chief.

I'll ask the same question I asked for a week earlier. On the chart there, it said you guys are up to 100% in terms of filling up your staff. Are we still 100% and do you have transition plans or plans to fulfill if there are people coming in and out of the department?

Correct, yeah. With those three firefighters we just hired seven months ago, we were fully staffed.

And we currently have on the schedule promotional exams from battalion chief, captain, and engineer.

So when we have retirements, we have active promotional lists that will fill those spots.

We have an active firefighter recruitment list that we can hire from when that time comes.

Any other questions or comments? Council Member Lo?

Thank you, Chief. I'm just curious.

For the CERT program,

has that also been a challenge to get people to participate in the program?

Actually, no. In fact, we have a class that's coming up that's full. And so we do our best to recruit whenever possible, and any opportunity we get, we take advantage of. And I think the word is out that we put together a pretty good program, and the interest is always there.

Would it be helpful, because I know we just had a conversation earlier

with the police department, again,

trying to get people to participate in the Neighbor Watch program. Would you think it would be helpful if perhaps one day, you know, have a guest speaker, someone from the community engagement team or even from the PD? Again, if that program seems to be having some popularity, then would it be helpful to maybe also just modify and maybe add something to the program to try and also upreach to, you know, that cohort to participate in our Neighborhood Watch program?

Oh, absolutely. years ago we used to go to neighborhood watch meetings I was a captain in charge of the cert

amongst other things and we would do a presentation at those meetings so once this

gets back up and running I can see us

easily partnering to join those two forces

to get as much participation in the community as possible. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? Mayor Pro Tem Wong? Back to the fentanyl

question just curious what the fire department's seeing in paramedics and all that well you know

it's it's a combination of fentanyl um methamphetamine heroin so i don't have the data

with me in front of me to tell you how many overdose calls we've been on uh in the in the

last year i know there's been an uptick and i know that uh school districts have increased their use

of certain drugs to offset those types of uh overdoses that's you know in my time that's

something I never would have thought I would have seen. So there is an uptick. We're aware of it,

and we continue to respond just like we would on a daily basis.

I know you don't have the specific numbers, but just for a sense of scale, are we talking about dozens or hundreds? No, I would not say

to a large degree, no.

I would say we go on a very small percentage of uptick, I would say.

and then for emergency response do we we I assume we currently drill for response to certain emergencies I assume what can you confirm that and then what kind of drilling can you just detail what kind of drilling we do on an annual basis for kind of are we talking about earthquakes

oh absolutely okay yeah first of all we train daily when it comes to our response whether it for USAR response, urban search and rescue, wildland or wildfire.

Right now we're getting ready for that season. So we go through what's called refresher training.

our evacuation drills and we test all of our procedures.

We really increased that training because, you know, it's not a matter of if, it's when it's going to happen.

And so through what we've been doing this past year is making sure all of our procedures

are in place, making sure that all critical staff that are going to respond to our emergency operations center are trained.

So that's been a priority for the city manager and for the city in itself. So we continue to train for what we call all hazards. We're an all hazard department meaning we respond to everything

Right do we and we do drill Right

At the EOC in terms of like coordinating response between departments and making sure we're also coordinating response with Other departments in the region for how we work together Correct the shooting as an example where we had to call on a lot of mutual assistance

Those kind of drills to have absolutely yeah that

From the fire department side we have what's called the Los Angeles area fire chiefs association

And then an arm of that's called a regional training group through this group all 29 departments

Within Los Angeles trained to a standard so that we're all uniform in how we respond to

Mass casualty incidents such as the shooting on January 21st so that we're all on the same sheet of music when it comes

to how we respond whether it be those agencies into monterey park or us into our surrounding

agencies thanks chief uh martha for for the funding sources on m4 uh so special revenue would that be that's grant funding i assume mostly and does that include fire kind of inspection fees and

stuff or is that on a different fund? The ARPA is separate. It's got its own separate line item and it is $500,000 for ARPA. The special revenue is everything else. It's specific

to a project. It could be grant money. It could be any type of measure. They don't have

anything measures. So most of that will be grant money coming into the fire department.

And then can you detail what enterprise funds are supplementing fire operations?

Some of the code will go out to do the water service restrictions.

So some of that cost is related to salaries for code when they go out and handle any violations to the muni code for water services or trash services.

Okay. All right. That's it. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay.

We're going to take a quick 10-minute break. I know we're in Sydney for over two hours now. And it is currently 8.03, so we'll meet back at 8.13.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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All right, we're going to go ahead and get started.

everyone seems to be back

recording in progress

if you had a chance to stretch your legs and get a snack and use the facilities I think our next item is library

thank you

the next department is our library department