The Richmond City Council on Monday adopted a roughly $500 million budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year that will guide spending on general operating costs and important programs and city services for things such as public safety, housing supports and street maintenance.
The city’s General Fund accounts for roughly half of the budget at $249 million and covers operational costs such as staffing and basic city services. The other half of the budget, roughly $254 million, includes capital expenses and other non-general program and service costs.
The General Fund is $3.5 million less than what had been presented at earlier budget sessions. It includes spending reductions on city equipment, street paving, and legal services, among other items.
The new budget adds funding in several areas, including $100,000 for the Mobile Vendor Program, which aims to help unlicensed street vendors get permitted; $200,000 for a sea level rise consultant; and $5,000 for art installations in the City Council meeting room.
Richmondside reviewed the City Manager’s Office and Finance Department budget summary and noted some of the highlights below. We’ve also included some basic information about how the budget and the adoption process work. The entire 91-page operating budget can be found, along with past adopted budgets, on the city’s website.
City continues to support policing alternatives, but budget raises questions about homelessness services
In June 2021, the city adopted a Reimagining Public Safety plan with the goal of moving away from traditional policing to more community-based solutions. The four programs it features — YouthWORKS, the Office of Neighborhood Safety, Community Crisis Response Program and Safe Organized Spaces (SOS) Richmond — receive $7.8 million combined in the newly adopted budget, through a combination of city funds and state and federal grants.
The Office of Neighborhood Safety focuses on gun violence prevention using street-level outreach and intervention with high-risk community members; YouthWORKS helps teens and young adults connect with employment opportunities and training; Safe Organized Spaces helps unhoused residents access housing and harm-reduction services; and the Community Crisis Response Program provides a non-police alternative to mental health crises and non-violent emergencies.
The $7.8 million budgeted for these programs in the coming fiscal year is $1 million less than planned in previous budget drafts. This is due to a reduction in the “unhoused interventions” category of the Reimagining Public Safety budget.
The council plans to redirect money from unspent city funds to replace what was cut. City staff couldn’t provide councilmembers with the available unspent dollar amounts but said those figures could be provided when the council returns from its upcoming summer recess in September.
The city is also expecting $28.7 million in pending grants to support unhoused residents, including a HomeKey grant that will allow the city to purchase a Motel 6 for $4.9 million to provide housing. That grant is expected to be awarded in the coming weeks, and city staff are “optimistic” that Richmond is well-positioned to receive the grant, according to the budget summary. But if the city does not receive the award, staff said, this fall the council would have to determine how else to fund planned services for unhoused people in Richmond.
City Council members approved the budget on Monday evening with a 6-0 vote. Mayor Eduardo Martinez left the meeting before the vote took place.
One of the organizations that could stand to be impacted by the redirection of funding for unhoused interventions is SOS Richmond. According to Lina Velasco, director of the Community Development Department, the organization’s contract with the city is supported partially through the city’s Reimagine fund, and partially from an Encampment Resolution Funding (ERF) grant from the state. The 15-month, $1.56 million contract with SOS began in April.
SOS Executive Director Daniel Barth said he welcomed conversations with the city’s Community Development Department on how his program will be funded, especially given that the city’s Reimagining Public Safety Community Taskforce — a council-appointed body formed in 2020 — is being dissolved as planned at the end of June.
“I look forward to having this conversation,” Barth told the City Council, adding that it’s his understanding that SOS would continue to be supported by the state ERF grant. “Because if that’s not the case, then what we have is that we are signaling two days before (the task force) sunsets that we are going to diminish the impact (to interventions to policing alternatives).”
Earlier this year, Safe Organized Spaces opened a resource and drop-in center for unhoused residents on South Second Street.
Meanwhile, the Community Crisis Response Program has begun responding to non-violent or non-felony mental health crises, including interventions with unhoused people, and the city hired the program’s director, Michael Romero, last month.
Romero began his career as a psychiatric nurse in 1992 and spent 20 years working in Southern California hospitals, according to his bio on the city website. In 2017, he transitioned to outpatient mental health work in Orange County, focusing on street outreach, and in 2021 he joined Be Well OC, a nonprofit providing 24-hour homeless and substance abuse services in Huntington Beach.
Some capital projects and programs are deferred or unfunded
While Richmond’s General Fund is balanced when it comes to day-to-day operations, there’s a $78 million revenue shortage for other expenses. The adopted budget cites $254 million in revenue for these expenses, but their total cost is listed at $332 million.
City officials said this is typical because these types of capital improvement projects can span multiple years and are sometimes funded by grants or other sources, so the timing of the revenue doesn’t always match the fiscal year.
“It is a constant loop of never being able to catch up again.”
Cesar Zepeda, District 2 councilmember
For example, the city could face $34 million in deferred maintenance costs this year for projects such as street repairs and other infrastructure work, according to District 2 Councilmember Cesar Zepeda.
At the June 18 council meeting, Zepeda blamed the shortfall on past council budget decisions to defer repairs for things such as potholes, street lighting, infrastructure, and wastewater systems.
“In the city we have a really difficult time — not just ours but a lot of other cities — when they don’t save up for this maintenance,” Zepeda said during the meeting. “It is a constant loop of never being able to catch up again.”
Budget includes dollars for safety improvements at dangerous Richmond intersections
One non-General Fund project, “traffic calming,” received $1.6 million thanks to Measure J, a county transportation tax. Traffic calming refers to measures designed to make the streets safer, for example by installing speed bumps and crosswalks, or other hardscaping meant to deter vehicle sideshows.
Traffic congestion and road safety have been hot discussion topics at recent council meetings, with residents calling in during public comment periods to advocate for improvements in their respective neighborhoods, most notably residents along Solano Avenue near Interstate 80 who’ve expressed concern over a lack of crosswalks.
The traffic-calming money will be used to focus on 18 high-priority intersections, which include: S. Garrard Blvd. and W. Richmond Ave.; MacDonald Ave. and 15th St.; MacDonald Ave. and 16th St.; Esmond Ave. and 26th St.; Howard St. and Vale Rd.; 32nd Street between Esmond and Garvin avenues; S. 37th St. and Wall Ave.; Key Blvd. and Barrett Ave.; S. 49th St. and State Ave.; Carlson Blvd. and Bayview Ave.; Carlson Blvd. and Carl Ave.; Mariposa St. and Carl Ave.; Merced St. and Carl Ave.; S. 55th St. and Santa Clara St.; Carlson Blvd. and Tehama Ave.; Shasta St. and Plumas Ave.; and Carlson Blvd. and Sutter Ave.
At its June 4 meeting, the City Council unanimously approved creating a new two-person Traffic Calming division of the Department of Public Works to help address pedestrian and bicycle safety concerns.
Refinery tax could increase revenue if approved by voters in November
At last Tuesday’s City Council meeting, members voted unanimously to place the Richmond Refining Business License Tax on the November ballot. The tax of $1 per barrel would bring $60 million to $90 million in General Fund revenue annually, shoring up the city’s coffers.
Both proponents and opponents, including several rows of Chevron refinery workers in their blue uniforms, were out in full force at the meeting, and at a rally outside the Civic Center beforehand. City Council chambers were at capacity and officials were forced to open the neighboring auditorium at the Richmond Civic Center for overflow seating. More than 100 people spoke during a public comment session that lasted more than two hours. Opinions appeared evenly split, with refinery workers expressing concern for their jobs and community health advocates pushing for Chevron to pay the tax.
Kristin Frost, who described herself as a third-generation Chevron employee, said her mother grew up in South Richmond, where Frost spent her childhood, and has worked in the refinery’s process-safety group, helping to monitor its environmental safeguards for the past 12 years.
“I’m proud to work for Chevron. I’m proud of the way that Chevron supports this community and the opportunities it gives us as employees to give back through volunteering at local nonprofits,” she said. “Since I was hired, we have made lasting contributions that help meet the community’s needs and have donated over $48 million to nonprofit organizations that support workforce development, homelessness issues, local school (science, technology, engineering and math) education and our community’s youth.”
Others, like Sandrine Demathieu, a kindergarten teacher at Nystrom Elementary, implored the City Council to vote in favor of placing the tax on the November ballot. Demathieu said pollution created in part by the refinery has a negative health impact on her students.
“I’m here today because I love my students with all my heart, and it kills me that my students suffer from chronic absences,” she said. “Children who grow up in Richmond are admitted to urgent care for respiratory issues at triple the rate of kids across California. Chevron’s CEO would rather take a 12% raise to make $26.5 million a year than to put a tiny portion of their profits into the community’s hands.”
How the city budget works
Each year, the city creates an annual budget that covers the coming fiscal year, which starts on July 1, according to the city’s website. The approved budget sets the maximum spending limit for the year and can only be changed by the Richmond City Council.
The city’s General Fund is structurally balanced, meaning that the city’s recurring revenues, such as property and sales taxes, are enough to pay for recurring yearly expenses required for normal government operations, such as salaries for city workers and debt and pension payments.
Curious about how the Richmond City Council works and who represents your neighborhood? Read our quick City Council guide here.
The number of full-time city employees is currently 771, a 9% increase since 2021.
Richmond uses an “encumbrance” budget system to track planned expenses and help reserve money for future payments. In basic terms, this means that unused revenues at year-end can carry over to the following year.
The council holds public hearings to review the proposed budget. While most funds are budgeted annually, capital projects are budgeted for the entire duration of a project, which can be multiple years.
Richmond’s City Manager Shasa Curl can approve some budget changes within departments, but the City Council must approve changes to total fund amounts or transfers between funds. Any extra spending using unexpected income must also be approved by the council.
