At its April 19 meeting, the Roseville City Council approved an
effort called “Engage Roseville: A Community Conversation about
Priorities.”
Extending through Spring 2018, the effort will
involve residents, businesses, and others who have a stake in
Roseville’s quality of life, in prioritizing city services and looking
at options to match services levels with revenues. A key component will
be the volunteer Community Priorities Advisory Committee.
Why do we need to do this now?
During
the recession and as the economy began to recover, Roseville’s strong
fiscal management allowed the City to maintain quality-of-life services
while minimizing cuts. We reduced staffing, implemented pension reforms,
cut hours at city facilities and cut community events to maintain a
balanced budget and levels of service. We also deferred funding for
things like maintenance of our streets and public facilities.
In
the time since, we’ve conducted audits to ensure our staffing levels
and structure brought the greatest efficiency and effectiveness. In
fact, in the same period that our population has increased and services
have expanded, staffing levels have decreased.
The City and our
bargaining groups have partnered to slow payroll growth, reduce
post-retirement benefits, and reduce salaries. All the while, a
constantly changing legislative and regulatory environment continues to
add unfunded mandates and significant costs to the City’s operations. A
recent example being when the State moved responsibility for stormwater
management from the State to local government, adding an annual,
unreimbursed expense of $1 million to the General Fund.
These
realities, in addition to a slowing and shifting economy, have led to a
budget gap that will continue to widen in the years ahead.
How does the budget look today?
We
achieved a break-even budget in FY 2016-17, where operational expenses
matched operational revenues. While the City’s fiscal position has been
improving, costs are growing faster than revenues. In addition, we have
deferred maintenance costs and other long-term liabilities that are
coming due.
If the City were to maintain its current levels of
service while also fully funding its long-term liabilities and deferred
maintenance, the General Fund budget would realize a $10 million
structural deficit per year, resulting in a fiscally unsustainable
position moving forward.
How are we going to tackle the budget gap?
In
response to this fiscal reality, the Council directed staff at its
annual goals workshop to initiate a process involving the community
aimed at evaluating the City’s general fund operations and revenues.
The
goal is to find a way to balance the City’s obligation to maintain
fiscal stability while continuing to provide high-quality essential
services and addressing long-term liabilities. The Council approved this
process, called Engage Roseville at its April 19 City Council meeting.
What are some of the City’s quality-of-life goals?
Public safety:
- Maintaining fire protection services and 9-1-1 emergency and medical response times;
- Maintaining police crime suppression and investigation units;
- Preventing and investigating property-related crimes like theft and burglary; and,
- Maintaining the number of police officers on neighborhood patrols.
Streets and roads:
- Maintaining city infrastructure such as storm drains, bridges, and facilities; and,
- Maintaining city streets, roads and repairing potholes.
Parks, Recreation, and Libraries:
- Maintaining city parks, recreation facilities, trees, and landscape corridors;
- Maintaining community centers, aquatic facilities, and event programming; and,
- Maintaining library services and ensuring public access.
Local economy and jobs creation:
How can I get involved?
Extensive
community participation will help ensure the City has a clear
understanding of community priorities, the community has a clear
understanding of fiscal constraints and opportunities, and
recommendations can be developed to align resources accordingly.
Several options to engage this effort exist:
Community Priorities Advisory Committee
The
Roseville City Council approved formation of a Community Priorities
Advisory Committee (CPAC) as one of several comprehensive activities to
ensure direct and meaningful community participation in reviewing levels
of City-provided services.
The committee process is intended to
bring together Roseville residents and businesses to assess specific
general fund City services and programs, and provide policy-level
recommendations to prioritize what we value as a community.
- Details
about the committee and applications to be considered by the City
Council for appointment to this committee of 15-20 community members can
be found at www.roseville.ca.us/engageroseville.
- The
committee will meet at 6-8 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of
the month from July 2017 through March 2018. The location will vary and
will be noted on the website.
- Meetings are open to the public
and will be videotaped and available for viewing on the City’s
government-access channel COR-TV (Comcast 14 and Consolidated 73) and on
the City’s website.
Public-Engagement Plan
To obtain broad public input, the City is developing a public-engagement plan with the following goals:
- Gather additional, broad feedback about quality of life services important to the community;
- Continue
to responsibly inform residents about the City’s budget, fiscal
situation and needs, including revenues, expenses and challenges;
- Provide
important information to City Council and City staff about the kind of
community people want to live in and which services they value;
- Highlight the trade-offs associated with allocating limited resources; and,
- Support
continued transparency of the City’s decision-making process and
maintain the City’s tradition and practice of community collaboration
and trust.
Strategies to engaging the wider community in
this discussion of community priorities to obtain broad public input
could include: online town halls, social media, surveys, public forums,
community events, and community-based meetings involving presentations,
exercises, opinion research, and a concentrated focus on two-way
communication.
All of these elements will be considered in
development of the public engagement plan. As always, the City will
continue its emphasis of partnering with local media to keep people
informed as well.
How will I know what’s happening with this effort?
- Subscribe to the City’s bi-weekly e-newsletter: City of Roseville News at www.roseville.ca.us/connect
- Check www.roseville.ca.us/engageroseville
- Watch meetings online (Under e-Services tab on City homepage, go to Streaming Video)
- Attend meetings of the Community Priorities Advisory Committee
- Participate
in digital democracy via surveys, online town halls, community meetings
and events as publicized in City of Roseville News e-newsletter
Questions?
For inquiries related to the Community Priorities Advisory Committee:
Mike Isom, [email protected], (916) 774-5527
Kathy Pease, [email protected] (916) 774-5434
For inquiries related to the Public Outreach effort:
Megan MacPherson, [email protected], (916) 775-5455