Councilman James Casey, who voted against approving the 2024-25 city budget in June because he believed that citizens weren’t closely included in the process, called for a less rushed approach to formulating budgets in the future.

At the August 12 Ceres City Council meeting Casey also cited his own lack of understanding about aspects of the budget as to why he voted against its approval.

The council voted to approve the spending plan in a 4-1 vote.

Casey, who continues to hammer the theme that the city hasn’t done an effective job of notifying the public and advertising to get folks to attend public hearings, said he was “surprised that it was a public hearing but yet we were going to vote on it anyway.”

“Invite the public and truly invite the public, you know, don’t post it 72 hours before on a bulletin board on Magnolia Street. Let the people know how we’re spending the money.”

Casey also said he opposed the budget because the council had no engagement in discussing the council’s $6,000 piece of the budget pie.

In trying to convince the council that the budget process needs to be not pushed up against the July 1 deadline each year, he is calling for a better review of the budget to determine if budget funds weren’t expended.

He suggested a public budget session to answer all councilmember’s questions and an update on any unspent funds “so that maybe we don’t have to increase the fees to the youth of our city to have a recreation department … maybe there’s plenty of money there so we can fill those 10 positions in the Police (Department). We don’t know.

Casey said he is knowledgeable about finances as the owner of a small company but admitted that he didn’t have enough time to review the budget and understand, for example, what the $13.8 million for contract services was for among other things.

Casey expressed fears of the city going down an unsustainable path of overspending and dipping into reserves and since the city won’t have federal ARPA funds next year. He mentioned telling then City Manager Alex Terrazas after he was elected, “Holy smokes, we gotta do something because I don’t want to be the city councilperson in 2026 having to declare bankruptcy for the city of Ceres.”

“And maybe it’s not that serious and maybe it is. I don’t know.”

Ceres resident Gene Yeakley agreed with Casey, citing how former Councilwoman Linda Ryno often insisted that the city cannot spend beyond its revenue projections.

“We’re a small city and why we can’t be on a budget, I don’t know why,” said Yeakley, who called for commonsense spending.

John Warren said the public has a blind trust in city leaders to “do the right thing” so they feel like “why do we have to check up on them?”

The city has used reserves and ARPA funds for the past three budget cycles.

The Ceres City Council approved the $28.7 million budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 by using $1.5 million in ARPA funds and tapping into reserves by $635,504 to fill a $2.13 million gap.

The spending plan also counts on freezing 10 vacant positions.

“Everything is going up in cost,” explained City Manager Doug Dunford when he outlined in June how the city is projected to spend $28.7 million against anticipated revenue of $26.57 million. He said during meetings with city department heads there was a lot of “giving” to make the “balanced budget come forward.”

Dunford said the growth rate of expenditures has been outpacing revenue growth with the city spending 4.3% more than last year with revenues decreasing. The city expects to realize only minor increases in sales taxes, business license taxes and property tax revenue while inflation drives up the cost of providing services. For example, employee pension costs are rising, with the employer contribution for public safety pensions expected to jump up nearly 11%.

Adding to the budget shortfall is what the city of Modesto is charging Ceres for the fire services contract. It’s rising 7.2%.

The city’s liability insurance premiums also are rising – by a whopping 33%.

Borrowing into reserves will leave a balance of about $6.1 million, which is 21.3% of expenditures, which satisfies the council’s established policy of maintaining at least a minimum of 18%.

Councilwoman Rosalinda Vierra said she likes the idea of sharing the budget process with the council, so they can answer questions from citizens like when Shirley Rogers sought an explanation earlier in the meeting of the specifics of the council budgeting $6,000 for professional development. She said she didn’t vote for the budget “without a lot of thought and spreadsheets.”

Having the public more involved could determine “if there are things they don’t think we need any longer.”

The council decided by consensus to move forward with Casey’s idea – which was rejected by Councilman Daniel Martinez and Mayor Javier Lopez.