Consider and approve a cost-of-living adjustment for the non-civil service staff.

In preparing the FY25 budget, the CFO recommended a pause on issuing a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) to assess the city's financial position due to several unplanned expenditures, such as rate increases for garbage collection, health insurance, animal shelter facility fees, and capital projects/equipment. Now that the dust has settled, there has been a deep dive analysis of the City's financial strength in sales tax revenue.  The sales tax revenue was understated in FY24 due to adjustment entries to account for the timing difference and to comply with the accounting principles for revenue recognition.  Due to the understated FY25 Sales Tax Revenue Budget, no action is needed to amend the budget to fund the COLA.

After making the year-end closing adjustment entries, the sales tax revenue is $3.5M more than projected at the time of the budget adoption. The CFO recommends a 3% COLA for our non-civil service staff employed on or before July 1, 2024.  The COLA is effective January 1, 2025, without retroactive pay.

The CFO recommends a 3% COLA for non-civil service staff employed on or before July 1, 2024. The COLA's effective date is January 1, 2025, and it does not include retroactive pay.