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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-03-17 Finance Committee Summary MinutesFINANCE COMMITTEE SUMMARY MINUTES Page 1 of 8 Regular Meeting March 17, 2026 The Finance Committee of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Community Meeting Room and by virtual teleconference at 4:00 p.m. Present In-Person: Lauing (Chair), Burt, Lu Absent: Call to Order Chair Lauing called the meeting to order. The clerk called the roll. Public Comment None. Agenda Items 1. Recommendation to the City Council to Adopt a Resolution Approving the Fiscal Year 2027 Wastewater Collection Utility Financial Forecast, and Amending Rate Schedules S-1 (Residential Wastewater Collection and Disposal), S-2 (Commercial Wastewater Collection and Disposal), S-6 (Restaurant Wastewater Collection and Disposal), and S-7 (Commercial Wastewater Collection and Disposal – Industrial Discharger); CEQA Status: Not a project under CEQA Guidelines Section 15378(b)(5) Eric Wong, Resource Planner, provided a slide presentation including wastewater collection rate projections, FY 2027 proposed budget deductions (wastewater), wastewater bill comparisons, FY 2027 rate increase drivers, wastewater cost and revenue projections, wastewater operations reserve projections, wastewater CIP reserve projections, communication and outreach, and recommendations. Robert Phillips, Utilities Advisory Commission Commissioner, stated this passed 6-1. The magnitude of the rise is high. Most of it is not within the Utilities but in Public Works and what is going on with the treatment plant. The reserve policy is not always clear. There are concerns of over reserving. The study by the auditor is being anticipated. The one commissioner who voted against stated the reasons to be lack of visibility into the main elements of the rise in costs and the lack of visibility into the reserve requirements. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 2 of 8 Finance Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 3/17/2026 Item 1 Public Comment - None Councilmember Lu inquired if there were any other deductions discussed on the radar but not ready to roll out in 2027. Dave Yuan, Strategic Business Manager, Utilities, replied other ideas are being vetted but have not been fleshed out. They are citywide, department wide, or efficiencies. The ones that have been identified are certain and are structural changes that can be moved forward in FY27. The budgets are still being refined to see what other opportunities there are. There are some staffing facilities, maybe relocation. Capacity fees for wastewater are being looked at and a cost of service study. Councilmember Lu asked how water costs work administratively and operationally. Mr. Yuan stated a lot of the customer service programs are shared across all the different utilities. Councilmember Lu thought the concept of leveraging internal resources between departments and utilities is important. Councilmember Lu wanted to know how vacancies are potentially affecting rates for wastewater. Lisa Bilir, Assistant Director, Utilities, responded in order to develop the forecast, the adopted budget was used as a baseline. If there are vacancies beyond what is included in the forecast, that will be realized in the actual numbers and the costs will be lower than what was forecasted. Mr. Yuan added there currently are not very many wastewater vacancies. It is the second smallest fund and is fully staffed. Councilmember Lu wanted information about the $3 million loan from the fiber fund and why the payments will not be deferred or extended. Assistant Director Bilir explained the funds were borrowed in case of a shortage of cash as a result of moving a CIP main replacement project up a year and having costs higher than expected and revenues lower than expected. Looking at the projection for the end of 2026 and going forward, there is a formal loan agreement that says the funds need to be repaid this year and there is no expectation to need the funds to address the cash beyond the end of this year. Assistant City Manager Nose shared that Staff is moving through refining talking about efficiencies. Staff is expected to be more equipped to have deeper dive questions as part of the budget conversations in May. Pat Burt, Councilmember, asked if the revenue was driven by a Valley Water grant. Mr. Wong confirmed that. Councilmember Burt inquired if the cost projection refers to 2026 or 2027. Assistant Director Bilir believed it referred to 2026 but would double check. Councilmember Burt asked how the expenses could be projected lower than the forecast. Councilmember Burt wanted the additional discharge limits or regulations summarized. Aaron Gilbert, Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant Manager, explained the total amount of nitrogen that is allowed to be discharged into the bay has been significantly reduced. The major driver for the current largest project is driven at removing nitrogen from the discharge. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 3 of 8 Finance Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 3/17/2026 Councilmember Burt asked if there would be similar increases. Mr. Gilbert answered yes. Councilmember Burt asked for a summary of the purpose and scope of the auditor's review of reserves. Mr. Yuan explained they look at benchmarking from other neighboring cities and best practices, the number of types of reserve buckets, comparing the reserve names to other benchmark cities and best practices, and the number of days with amounts of the reserve level. Councilmember Burt asked if what is being looked at in the review is part of the consolidation of the reserves. Mr. Yuan stated it is required by law to be kept separate. Each enterprise is treated separately but are a consolidation of reserves within the fund. Assistant Director Bilir added the $0.7 million number referred to the total change for the year of 2026. The numbers that come after are the components that make up the $0.7 million total. The components are the treatment costs that are going $1.7 million higher and there are the lower collection operation costs and CIP costs. They net out to the total of $0.6 million. Councilmember Burt queried if the treatment cost update was completed. Mr. Gilbert replied they were going back to what was traditional. Chair Lauing questioned when they could charge more and if there are any expenses not included. Mr. Gilbert responded nothing is excluded other than liability. That was built into the contracts when the agreement was first made. Councilmember Burt asked where the pension transfer was before. Assistant City Manager Nose stated it is an accounting reconciliation of ensuring all the partners are being appropriately charged for their pro rata share of the 115 contributions. The way it is displayed and allocated has been cleaned up. Chair Lauing asked if the new staff positions were because of the new treatment plant. Mr. Gilbert stated it partially is and the other is due to increased regulations through the state. Assistant City Manager Nose added those would be brought forward as part of the FY27 proposed budget for this committee's consideration and ultimately Council's recommendation. Chair Lauing asked about accelerating the CIP program on sewer replacement. Assistant Director Bilir said a plan to move to the five miles per project or two and a half miles a year of main replacement for the sewer utility had been brought to Council a couple of years ago. They had to defer to the first of those projects and are planning to resume the first project for construction in FY28. It is going to be five miles total. They will be done every other year to try to have larger projects that get the most cost effective bids. Chair Lauing wanted to know the difference between 2026 and 2031 on the risk assessment. Assistant Director Bilir explained in the reserve management guideline policies, the guidelines for the reserves are outlined. The goal is to get the reserves to be within the guideline range. The risk assessment tries to look at a series of utility specific risks. Chair Lauing observed it results in the original slide of $10 more. Mr. Wong stated $10.70 for the residential customers. Councilmember Burt added they wanted to continue to emphasize they are in the midst of a generational investment in the wastewater treatment plant in addition to additional SUMMARY MINUTES Page 4 of 8 Finance Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 3/17/2026 regulations. In the absence of that, ratepayers are going to assume costs just keep going up at this rate. The merits need to be explained. MOTION: Councilmember Burt moved, seconded by Councilmember Lauing, to recommend the City Council adopt a resolution (Attachment A): 1. Approving the Fiscal Year 2027 Wastewater Collection Utility Financial Forecast shown in this staff report and attachments; and 2. Amending Rate Schedules (Attachment A, Exhibit 1) effective July 1, 2026 (FY 2027): a. S-1 (Residential Wastewater Collection and Disposal) b. S-2 (Commercial Wastewater Collection and Disposal) c. S-6 (Restaurant Wastewater Collection and Disposal); and d. S-7 (Commercial Wastewater Collection and Disposal – Industrial Discharger) MOTION PASSED: 3-0 2. Recommendation to the City Council to Adopt a Resolution Approving the Fiscal Year 2027 Water Utility Financial Forecast and Reserve Transfers, and Amending Rate Schedules W-1 (General Residential Water Service), W-2 (Water Service From Fire Hydrants), W-3 (Fire Service Connections), W-4 (Residential Master-Metered and General Non-Residential Water Service), and W-7 (Non-Residential Irrigation Water Service). CEQA Status: Not a project. Adriana Artola, Senior Resource Planner, provided a slide presentation including water rate projection FY 2027, FY 2027 proposed budget reductions, water bill comparisons, FY 2027 rate increase drivers, water cost and revenue projections, water operations reserve projections, water CIP reserve projections, water reserve projections, cash on hand and credit ratings, water conservation programs and ways to save, communication and outreach, and recommendations. Chair Lauing asked what having cash on hand low means if bond financing is going to be done. Lauren Lai, Chief Financial Officer and Administrative, stated it is one of five primary factors that are weighted. S&P and Moody's weight them differently. Chair Lauing asked about the scale of the outstanding cash on hand. Ms. Artola replied the bars are total unrestricted cash and the orange line is days cash on hand. The days cash on hand is relative to operating expenses. The operation expenses are growing over this period so that ratio will change based on that. Commissioner Phillips commented that this recommendation was rejected by the UAC and summarized the item. Councilmember Burt asked if they were able to maintain vacancies because of the AMI. Mr. Yuan confirmed that to be correct. They have 95 percent deployed. There are two more regular meter readers and a couple of hourly meter readers. Councilmember Burt expressed a need to emphasize that labor costs are going down because they have invested in these technologies. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 5 of 8 Finance Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 3/17/2026 Mr. Yuan stated they would remove four vacant positions this year and another one full-time and three hourly positions next year. Councilmember Burt asked for a description of leveraging inter-department resources. Mr. Yuan responded they are leveraging a quarter of the clerk's office to help facilitate the UAC meetings increase of hiring for another recently vacant position. They are leveraging more of the city attorney's time because of the different utilities, regulations, and new programs upcoming. They are using more of IT's time with fiber to the premises. They are using more HR with all the vacancies. They are trying to add more staffing to help with some needs and reduce some of the general funds. Councilmember Burt wanted to know how that is a net reduction in cost. Mr. Yuan explained they bill a quarter of her time to the utilities department in lieu of filling the vacant position. Instead of paying for a full time coordinator or administrative assistant, they pay only a quarter time for full time. Councilmember Burt observed they were not getting much greater efficiency as a result of the clerk spending a quarter person per year on it. Mr. Yuan said it would be half-time to learn to be as technical as what the clerk is helping with. It is a half-time body they are saving. Councilmember Burt inquired if they had gotten any responses to concerns about SFPUC. Assistant Director Bilir replied BAWSCA had followed up with some questions to SFPUC. There have been several meetings to explain the reasons for the rate increase and provide the documentation of that in accordance with the contract. Councilmember Lu asked what kind of yields are obtained from the reserves. Ms. Lai stated the reserves are in the pooled cash which is managed by Chandler Asset Management. The assets are managed under the investment policy. There is a robust investment policy that has the short-term portfolio with higher liquidity and some longer term. It is actively managed. Chair Lauing added it is conservative and liquid. Councilmember Lu inquired if any changes in demand has been projected regarding water usage. Ms. Artola provided a slide showing the water demand projections used for the financial forecast. Councilmember Lu queried the best story to be told about rate increases. Catherine Elvert, Utilities Communications Manager, replied the communication about the value of investment in rates and infrastructure is one of the key messages in the communication strategy. The desire is to communicate that through these rates safe and reliable utility services are being funded. Chair Lauing observed there may be ways to use the debt capacity and had questions about the bottom row on the table about rates on packet page 62. Assistant Director Bilir replied that bottom row is a usage level 2500 cubic feet per month. That would be the bill that a resident who used that much water would pay. Chair Lauing encouraged addressing communication about the comparison to peers who receive potable water. Councilmember Burt wanted to ensure everyone knows that graph is as of January 2026. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 6 of 8 Finance Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 3/17/2026 Councilmember Burt recommended incorporating a conservative increase in usage based upon the housing increases. Assistant Director Bilir responded they are coordinating closely with planning to develop those forecasts for the purposes of supply planning. A comparison of those numbers can be brought back. As part of the budget, there are revenue estimates for new growth. Those were included in a conservative way spread over several years to be reviewed as the forecast is refined. Councilmember Burt asked if the demand forecast is tracked with revenue forecasts, would it show lower expenses in the outlying years than what is in the projection. Assistant Director Bilir would coordinate back with budget about that. Councilmember Burt asked if Staff has comments about concerns about the UAC recommendation. Assistant Director Bilir did not think there were concerns. The UAC discussion expressed a desire to have a lower increase now with the potential for a higher increase later. Chair Lauing suggested talking to Jonathan Lait to get a realistic proposal. Item 2 Public Comment 1. Peter D. (Zoom), director for Yosemite Rivers Alliance, advised that Council needs to hold a study session on water and get the SFPUC and BAWSCA there to understand the issues and provide a more sustainable financial track. MOTION: Councilmember Burt moved, seconded by Councilmember Lauing, to recommend the City Council adopt a resolution (Attachment A): 1. Approving the Fiscal Year 2027 Water Utility Financial Forecast shown in this staff report and attachments and approving a reserve transfer of up to $5,500,000 from the Operations Reserve to the CIP Reserve in FY 2026; and 2. Increasing Water Utility rates for FY 2027 by 8 percent to reflect increases effective July 1, 2026 (FY 2027): by reducing the amount going to the operation reserves by approximately 1.2 million from the proposed amount by amending rate schedules: a. W-1 (General Residential Water service) b. W-2 (Water Service from Fire Hydrants) c. W-3 (Fire Service Connections) d. W-4 (Residential Master-Metered and General Non-Residential Water Service), and e. W-7 (Non-Residential Irrigation Water Service) MOTION PASSED: 3-0 3. Recommendation to the City Council to Adopt a Resolution Amending the Utility Rate Schedule R-1 for Residential Refuse Collection and Utility Rate Schedule R-C for Commercial SUMMARY MINUTES Page 7 of 8 Finance Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 3/17/2026 Refuse Collection Reflecting a 3.0 Percent Rate Increase for Fiscal Year 2027; CEQA status – Exempt under Public Resources Code Section 21080(b)(8) and CEQA Guidelines 15378(b)(4) Paula Borges Fujimoto, Solid Waste Manager, provided a slide presentation including refuse rates, current residential and proposed rate change, residential monthly rate comparison, rate stabilization reserve, and recommendations. Councilmember Lu questioned how costs could be kept low compared to neighbors. Ms. Fujimoto replied there has been a contract with Green Waste of Palo Alto since 2009. It has been amended and extended three times and cost reductions as well as new services have been incorporated to help the City meet its zero waste goals and greenhouse gas reductions associated with solid waste. Contract power comes into play when the contract is being amended and existing services are looked at. After that amendment is approved by Council, the contract costs usually have an annual increase based on four different indexes that are in the contract. After the contract is approved, the power to reduce costs decreases but because it is a long-term contract, they have been able to be efficient with costs related to the contract. Councilmember Lu observed that higher commercial rates might be the reason for lower residential rates. Ms. Fujimoto explained Prop 218 requires that rates be based on the sector so residential customers cannot be charged for more than the cost for services. Councilmember Lu asked if all street sweeping is considered part of the refuse collection utility. Ms. Fujimoto responded many other cities pay for street sweeping out of stormwater, general, or other types of funds. For Palo Alto, the refuse fund covers the street sweeping cost. Councilmember Burt inquired if commercial rates are also going up by 3 percent and wanted a slide with comparison to other cities on commercial. Ms. Fujimoto stated that information is available but there is no slide prepared for it. Councilmember Burt mentioned paying a premium for domestic recycling of certain materials and asked for updates about that. Ms. Fujimoto explained City Council provided a limit of how much would be paid. It would be up to $2 million additional costs. That has not been reached yet. The materials are being kept domestically. The main material going overseas for processing is cardboard. Work is being done with Green Waste to look at the resources available domestically and if there are opportunities, they have been given the green light to keep the equivalent of Palo Alto's cardboard to be processed domestically. Councilmember Burt wanted to ensure that information is made publicly available. Councilmember Burt asked about the charge on recyclable and compost recycle bins. Ms. Fujimoto stated the garbage rate is a bundled rate. Councilmember Burt urged making that information publicly available. Chair Lauing asked if it is known where the overseas cardboard goes. Ms. Fujimoto stated Staff has investigated and can track the material to the ports where they go overseas but not once it goes beyond the ports. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 8 of 8 Finance Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 3/17/2026 Councilmember Lu inquired if the underlying Green Waste contract increases year over year is the main driver of the 3 percent. Ms. Fujimoto confirmed that is a big component of the 3 percent. The main contract with Green Waste of Palo Alto expense is about 76 percent of the overall expenses. The escalator tends to be around 3 percent or cost of living increase. Three different indexes are used to look at the base expenses as well as other expenses connecting that increase. Councilmember Lu asked about the history of the rate stabilization fund and reserve. Ms. Fujimoto explained the $2.7 million is related to an increase in costs for Green Waste of Palo Alto contract. It was brought to the Finance Committee in November as well as full Council in December. The contract was amended. It was going to end in June 2026. It was amended and extended by four years. Because some of the vehicles were older, it needed to allow the purchase of additional collection vehicles. That resulted in the additional $2.7 million in FY26. Councilmember Lu asked how the reserves got high historically. Karin North, Assistant Director of Public Works, answered it was anticipated. Because of COVID, vehicle purchases were was delayed. There was also a delay in rate increases. In the next four years when a new contract is made, it is anticipated that power rates will go up. Item 3 Public Comment – None. MOTION: Councilmember Burt moved, seconded by Councilmember Lu, to recommend the City Council: 1. Approve and authorize a 3.0 percent rate increase to Refuse rates; and 2. Adopt the resolution amending current Utility Rate Schedule R-1 for Residential Refuse Collection and Utility Rate Schedule R-C for Commercial Refuse Collection. MOTION PASSED: 3-0sss Future Meetings and Agendas Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 5:57 p.m.