As it kicked off its budget talks for the coming fiscal year, the Pasadena City Council on Monday, May 4, raised concerns about matching planning priorities with the budget process and challenged city staff members to keep pace with the city’s 2030 carbon-free goal.
Despite a lengthy discussion and disagreements over progress and process, the City Council adopted its 2027-2031 capital improvement program budget and turned toward talks on the 2027 fiscal year operating budget.
The former, which lays out planned infrastructure projects covering facilities, streets, transportation, parking, sewers, parks, Rose Bowl, Arroyo Seco, Pasadena Center, water, power and technology, took up the majority of Monday’s meeting.
At issue for some on the City Council was how much of the proposed budget does not have identified funding sources. Councilmember Rick Cole questioned how well the city’s priorities for future planning have lined up with implementation.
“All of these projects more or less are consistent with the general plan,” Cole said. “There’s nothing in here that’s inconsistent with the general plan, but the general plan is not just a wish list. The general plan is a set of priority commitments.”
Pasadena Water and Power’s segment of the capital improvement project budget, specifically projects meant to get the city to being carbon-free by 2030, garnered most of the City Council’s focus.
The majority of council members voiced concern that the direction of the City Council was not being acted upon swiftly enough by Pasadena Water and Power and that the ambitious 2030 goal could be in jeopardy.
“I still don’t get the feeling that our staff is really committed to carbon-free,” Councilmember Steve Madison said.
Councilmembers Jason Lyon and Gene Masuda voted no on the segment of the capital improvement project that had to do with Pasadena Water and Power projects. Lyon said the proposed project timeline for expanding solar was not ambitious enough.
Lyon said that in the city manager’s letter to City Council on the operating budget, being carbon-free by 2030 was described as the City Council’s policy goal.
“I want to say to you clearly: The City Council’s goals are the city’s goals and once we set a ‘policy goal’ that then directs how operations happen,” Lyon said to Pasadena Water and Power General Manager David Reyes. “And so this is our goal, this is Pasadena’s goal, and it is your job to make it happen or to come to us and say we cannot either fiscally responsibly make it happen or we cannot technologically make it happen.”
Reyes said Pasadena Water and Power’s plan reflects what officials believe is possible to achieve within a fiscal year along with constraints on funding sources.
“We are inching our way forward. The task is monumental,” Reyes said. “We are seriously committed to ensuring that we are setting the stage, we are setting the pace for other communities to follow with real concrete plans and real dollars towards these projects. I do understand the frustration with some of the projects being unfunded, but having a plan in place is really the first step and then being able to identify what’s the best way to go forward.”
At the end of Monday’s meeting, the City Council opened public hearing on the operating budget, which will remain open at every City Council meeting until June 15.
According to a staff report, the recommended budget was balanced through use of anticipated one-time sales tax revenues of approximately $1.6 million and reserve balances of $3.8 million.
The report highlighted a handful of items included in the budget, covering a decrease in the Health Department’s budget by about $2.5 million, proposed Pasadena Police Department technology upgrades ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics and an expansion of the city’s parking enforcement program.