Chula Vista council members, along with Mayor Mary Casillas Salas, approved the city manager’s proposed fiscal year 2019-20 budget by a vote of 3-2 on May 21.
Salas voted yes, along with council members John McCann and Stephen Padilla, while council members Jill Galvez and Mike Diaz voted no.
The approved budget will now move onto a public hearing and recommendation for adoption to the City Council on June 4.
The budget, as laid out, includes $390.1 million in revenues and $387.5 million in expenditures, leading to a $2.6 million surplus.
This would be an improvement from last year, when the budget had $347.5 million in expenditures, compared to only $337 million in revenues.
Diaz and Galvez each expressed a desire to have more funding go toward growing the police department, and Galvez wanted three more firefighters added to the budget.
Measure A was passed in 2018 as a half-cent sales tax increase meant to go toward adding city firefighters and police officers.
Salas touted the hiring of 19 firefighters using Measure A funds during her state of the city address on May 14.
According to the proposal, the Measure A tax fund will add a total of 44 full time employees — 23 sworn fire department positions and 21 police department positions (12 sworn, 9 non-sworn) — between the mid-year addition in fiscal year 2019 and fiscal year 2020.
Currently, there is still a structural deficit of around $6 million, and a yearly general fund deficit is forecasted to begin in 2021 with an increase of $1-3 million each year, from $8 million in 2021 to $17.5 million in 2025.
The biggest area of expense versus revenue in the accepted budget is in the city’s sewer fund, which lists $37.1 million in projected revenue compared to $42.6 million in expenses. Grant funds come in a close second with an expected net loss of $5.1 million.
Galvez floated the idea of cutting all city council member staff and trimming down city attorney personnel in order to save money during a May 7 budget meeting. At Tuesday’s council meeting she publicly eliminated the position of senior council assistant in her office, a position held currently by Robert Moreno.
Galvez, who can make up to $50,000 annually as a part time council member, said she wanted the budget to reflect that she was eliminating the position effective July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year.
Senior council assistants are paid between $26.75 and $32.51 hourly, or up to $56,146.48 including benefits, depending on their classification.
Casillas Salas and Padilla both vocally disagreed with the idea of laying off their own staff in order to save money.
Moreno, who was at the council meeting said he had, “mixed emotions,” and that he had not been told prior to the meeting that he was officially being laid off.
“It’s politics when it comes down to it,” Moreno said. “Politics is a dirty game and unfortunately I got played.”
Moreno also disagreed with the idea that eliminating his position would help employ more peace officers.
“I don’t make the salary of a police officer, I don’t make the salary of a firefighter, so eliminating my position will not bring a police officer or firefighter to the city,” he said.
Galvez also called for the elimination of the cultural arts program manager position and that the money it would save could go toward the $1.6 million needed to hire five police officers and three firefighters.
“A lot of the function of cultural arts is already being done in multiple departments throughout the city and I’m looking for savings,” Galvez said Wednesday. “I think that the remaining tasks that are done by the program manager could be divided and we could save money necessary to hire more public safety.”
Galvez said adding three firefighters would allow each fire station to have four on call at any given time — allowing them to begin fighting a blaze as soon as they arrived — and that the five police officers could be spread out through areas of need.
“We’re all public servants and we all want the best for our city, and to me the best includes hiring five additional police officers and three additional firefighters this year,” she said.
An audible gasp could be heard in the council chambers after Galvez called for the position of Cultural Arts Manager Lynnette Tessitore, who was in attendance and had given a public comment in support of the budget earlier in the meeting.
Tessitore said she felt, “very sad,” that the idea of eliminating her position was brought up for discussion.
“I love this community more than anything… but I’m hopeful,” Tessitore said. “I believe that in the second largest city in the county that it’s reasonable to have the position of a cultural arts manager.”
Tessitore, who has held the position for around three years, said other cities the size of Chula Vista have multiple staff working in the area of cultural arts, whereas she is by herself working to manage two commissions, a grant and awards program and various events throughout the city.
Despite this, Tessitore said she makes the best out of the situation by taking advantage of working in collaboration with other organizations in order to have a broader reach.
“I can’t do my job alone,” she said. “I don’t work within the four walls here as my office. I work in the community. I’m in the community working with community members.”
Tessitore works on both the secretarial and managerial side of the Cultural Arts and International Friendship commissions, along with the financial side by balancing budgets and paying bills and invoices.
“I couldn’t do what I do all by myself. Most certainly I couldn’t. But do I think that I bring great value to it? Absolutely. Am I leading it and managing it? Absolutely,” Tessitore said.
The budget included a $26.8 million allocation for a capital improvement program, with $9 million going toward pavement rehab, $3.1 million to replace fire stations five and nine, $1 million for intersection improvements and $2.3 million for lead pedestrian intervals.
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this story Lynnette Tessitore’s first name was misspelled. The Star-News regrets the error.
