That the City Council consider and approve a $10,000 adjustment to the Fiscal Year 2021-2022 City Council budget for training and conferences, increasing the budget line item to $20,000 for Fiscal Year 2021-2022.

The approved Fiscal Year 2021-2022 budget includes $10,000 for Council members to attend training and conference sessions related to City-related matters.  Examples of relevant training and conference sessions include the annual League of California Cities Conference, training and educational sessions administered by the Southern California Association of Government or the Orange County Council of Governments, and various other training courses and conferences that occur periodically throughout the year.

Since Fiscal Year 2017-2018, the City Council had been reducing the allocation for training and conferences due to budget cuts and the budgetary uncertainty caused by COVID-19, decreasing funding from $10,000 in Fiscal Year 2017-2018 to $5,000 in Fiscal Year 2020-2021.  The change in the City Council's budget for training and conferences during the past five years is as follows:

 

While the Fiscal Year 2021-2022 budget did return Council's training and conference budget to $10,000, there has been an increase in the number, and cost, of in-person training opportunities and conferences specifically designed for council members/policymakers on a variety of topics, including public safety, public health, housing, land use, homelessness, transportation, and policy development. In order to provide the resources to allow Council to attend these training opportunities, should they choose to do so, staff recommends increasing the City Council's shared FY 2021-2020 Training and Conference budget line item by $10,000, to a total of $20,000. There is adequate available funding in the approved Fiscal Year 2021-2022 City Manager Non-Departmental Budget to allow for the reallocation of resources without requiring the use of General Fund reserves.

If approved, this budget appropriation will have no net impact on the Fiscal Year 2021-2022 General Fund Budget. The City Manager Non-Departmental Fund Budget (165251-7911) has sufficient funding for the proposed $10,000 reallocation to the City Council Training and Conference Budget line item (191101-7331), with no net increase in the approved Fiscal Year 2021-2022 General Fund Budget or use of General Fund reserves.