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Story and photos by Christianne McCormick
Photo, left: Director of Finance Clay Schoen presents budget breakdown
June 25, 2023 (El Cajon) -- El Cajon’s City Council on June 13 received a presentation on the Preliminary Annual Budget for fiscal year of 2023-2024. Council also moved forward on a ban on homeless camping on public property that would be similar to the City of San Diego’s new ordinance.
Budget deliberations
The budget presentation led by Director of Finance Clay Schoen and Senior Management Analyst Autumn Reberger. revealed that most of the city’s general fund budget has been going to El Cajon Police and Heartland Fire; this will continue in 2024.
In the last 10 years there has been an overall decrease in the city’s workforce and an over-hire of 10 police officers. Reber said, “Seventy-two percent of our expenditure budget is related to police and fire functions.” The budget has a total general fund expenditure of just under $100 million dollars. There were slight expenditure increases in police and fire functions, but expenditures were lower than what was expected, resulting in a balanced budget.
In the presentation, the General Fund was shown to be a total $99,954,889. Half (50%) went to the police department, 22% for the fire department, 10% public works, 10% general development, 5% parks and rec and 3% community development.
Councilmember Steve Goble expressed support for more public safety. There were over 2,000 parking violations last year; funding in that department “would be a great use of resources” Goble explained, because “we see semi-trucks parked along Broadway, along Main Street, along our thoroughfares. They block views of cars trying to get out of those shopping centers. It’s a danger.”
During deliberations, Councilman Phil Ortiz voiced concerns over funding for Fire Station Eight and pushed for early completion of a study on whether capitol improvements are needed there.
Fire Station Seven on Fletcher Parkway, which has been around for about 60 years is currently in a capital improvement project. “I’ve seen them back the firetruck into there and that’s like this space shuttle when you’re docking …It’s insane,” Ortiz commented. Funding for this station’s remodel is from Proposition O, the additional sales tax measure to fund public safety facilities exclusively.
Goble agreed with Ortiz regarding the urgency of these much-needed updates for the fire department facilities. “The Nurse Navigation Program isn’t quite where we thought it would be to reduce the load on some of our (emergency) calls. So, I agree that report can’t come soon enough, but we want it to be right.”
According to Mitchell, the findings of this study will be presented by the fall.
Concerns over a possible recession were raised by Mayor Bill Wells. He noted that according to Schoen’s report, El Cajon is “bracing for an economic downturn.” Wells asked Schoen whether the Council should be concerned about this economic possibility, since inflation is currently at 4.9%.
“I don't think you’ll find any economists that’ll actually put their money on the table and say it will happen,” the Director of Finance responded. “But it does seem like there’s a lot of suggestion that we are on the teetering edge of a recession. However, there are some positive indications that that may not be the case.”
Changes in inflation that occurred in the last few months is a positive indication that things are headed in the right direction economically, Schoen confirmed. He also added that the City of El Cajon has very healthy financial reserves as a result of measures like Proposition J and property taxes. Schoen said he is confident that the City will be able to handle any downturn if a recession occurs.
Prop J has shown to be successful, according to the report. The presentation revealed that both sales tax and property tax have been two significant contributors to the City’s general fund. Sales tax from proposition J yielded $13,353,000 and property taxes yielded $27,165,161.
Proposition J will end in March 2029. “You can see that is a large portion of the revenue that we’ll miss when that sun sets,” explained Reberger. The department does expect to see growth in property tax, while sales tax could remain stagnant in the future. They expect moderate growth in all other revenue areas as well, but predict that the city will only see a 2.3% change from the 2023 fiscal estimated actuals.
The Council members voted unanimously on the resolution to adopt the fiscal year 2023-2024 budget, which takes effect July 1st.
A copy of the city’s preliminary budget is available for the public to view at www.elcajon.gov/budget.
Banning homeless encampments
On June 13, the San Diego City Council voted 5-4 on an Unsafe Camping ordinance that prohibits tent encampments throughout the city if shelter beds are available.
A similar ordinance was presented to El Cajon’s City Council on the same day by Councilmember Ortiz. El Cajon’s City Council voted unanimously to review the potential ordinance to see how it comes into play for the City of El Cajon.
“I would like to direct our staff to analyze this ordinance with regard to what exactly it entails, enforcement measures, the legality of it,” said Councilmember Ortiz, who has previously shared that he experienced homelessness in college. Courts previously ruled that cities cannot ban sleeping in public if the city cannot provide enough shelter beds, deeming it cruel and unusual punishment.
San Diego’s new ban would also ban tent encampments around parks, schools, transit centers, canyons, and outside homeless shelters regardless of if there are available beds or not. This resulted in opposition from some activists, who called the decision short-sighted and argued that it would criminalize homeless people.
“I know we have a no camping policy as well in the City of El Cajon” said Ortiz, “but since there are cities that are jumping on board with regard to our policies mainly to mirror it, I felt it’s necessary that if they are doing something that we’re not and adopting some policies that make sense, it would help us to keep to our City Council goals not only in permanent housing, but in the integrity of our neighborhoods.”
The City of El Cajon currently has 1,153 people experiencing homelessness, 203 of which are unsheltered. In 2022 the percentage of unsheltered homeless individuals rose to 9.75%.
El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells, City Manager Graham Mitchell, Deputy Mayor Steve Goble, Assistant City Manager Vince DiMaggio, Councilmember Gary Kendrick, City Attorney Morgan Foley, Councilmember Michelle Metschel, City Clerk Angela Cortez and Councilmember Phil Ortiz were all present during this meeting.
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