At the next Council meeting we will be discussing a couple significant items:
- We will discuss adopting a treatment for our ARPA funds that requires less onerous reporting with no restrictions on the use of funds. Initially when the Treasury distributed ARPA funds, there was guidance that suggested we'd need to report on our uses and how they met the eligible use criteria. That criteria only allowed spending for a limited set of categories. With the new guidance, any ARPA funds under a certain threshold (which we qualify for) would be allowed to treat the funds received as wholly revenue replacement. We need to make an election to designate our funds this way.
- We will discuss adopting a resolution opposing California statewide ballot initiative 21-0042A1 sponsored by the California Business Roundtable. The Legislative Analyst Office summary is here: https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Initiative/2021-042 This initiative would expand the definition of a "tax", require voter approval for state taxes, changes the approval requirements for local taxes to align with state taxes, and requires that allowable uses and duration of state and local taxes to be specified. Staff and Cal Cities is recommending opposing this ballot initiative.
While the next meeting will continue to be virtual, the following meeting scheduled for 4.19.22 is expected to be a hybrid with the Council being in person with whomever wants to attend, along with participants remotely as well. More information on this to follow as it's available.
Please let me know if you have any thoughts or questions on the above.
