The Sunnyvale City Council is getting an early start on preparing the city budget for fiscal year 2015-16.
The council on May 21 received an overview of the city’s $356 million recommended budget and the city financial health seems to be stronger thanks in part to regional economic growth from the tech sector.
“It’s been a very strong economic recovery, it’s really picked up steam I think in general there is a general consensus that it’s on full legs and still has a lot still to it that we’re going to see a couple more years of continued strong economic growth,” Grace Leung, director of finance for the city, told the council on May 21.
The city is seeing lots of growth for yet another year.
“We’ve had three years of very high levels of activity and we’re on pace in this current fiscal year to still continue to be high so that’s a fourth straight year,” Leung said. “In this budget we’re still predicting elevated levels for a fifth straight year so that’s quite unprecedented. Right now we’re right in the middle of a very peak period.”
The budget covers all city operations and project expenditures, as well as contributions to reserves. The council will review the budget again in June and vote on an approval before the end of the month. The documents and subsequent May 19 discussion covered both short-term budget goals and long-term fiscal plans for the next 20 years.
Sunnyvale’s real estate market continues to be strong, even with housing prices averaging $1 million for a single family detached homes and $800,000 for all single family, including townhouse and condos.
“Looking over at the real estate market side, again this is very, very strong. We had very little drop off even when the global recession hit that was led with the housing market collapse. We saw very little decline there which is very fortunate,” Leung said. “We’re seeing a lot of peak numbers at this point.”
The council’s budget priorities are downtown development, parks, golf courses and open space, the civic center modernization and infrastructure, transportation and traffic improvements. The 2015-16 recommended budget includes 293 projects.
“As always infrastructure and transportation and traffic improvements are always front and center and we’ll be prepared to go through those project details as well,” Leung said.
The Mathilda, 237 and 101 interchange project, the Calabazas Creek Bridge and Fair Oaks Bridge projects are main focuses of the traffic and transportation initiatives. Also included in the budget are streets and roadway infrastructure and sidewalk, curb and gutter maintenance. Upcoming utility infrastructure projects are related to the water supply and distribution system, the wastewater collection and treatment system and the solid waste management system.
Other budgeted projects that are on the radar are community choice energy, scheduled to be presented to council on June 9; body cameras for police officers; a climate action plan, and an initiative to reduce greenhouse gasses and make Sunnyvale a more environmentally friendly city.
