$240 million — give or take a few million — doesn’t buy what it used to.
It’s the point City Manager Toni Lundgren intends to drive home during Tuesday’s special joint meeting of the Manteca City Council and Measure Q tax oversight committee.
The 10 a.m. gathering at the Manteca Transit Center, 220 Moffat Boulevard, is designed for elected leaders to provide direction on the priorities to be addressed with the temporary 20-year three quarter cent sales tax city voters approved in November and goes into effect April 1.
Lundgren also plans to make it clear city staff will look for other sources of revenue to augment the sales tax to maximize the impact the tax will have on the quality and level of municipal services.
The overall framework of the spending plan will address one-time expenditures as well as ongoing costs such as needed personnel such as 18 firefighters.
The big ticket items in the running for priority projects will be addressed by setting aside $6 million for debt service on what could potentially be 18-year bonds.
The last payment would coincide with the end of the 20-year tax.
The projects expected to be prioritized are:
*the new police station.
*Manteca’s sixth fire station that will be built in the southwest portion of the city.
*expansion of the animal shelter at Wetmore and Main streets.
*a community park and a new swimming pool.
*possibly a seventh fire station.
It is worth noting that expansion of the animal shelter is likely to strike a positive chord with former Mayor Ben Cantu who is among those appointed to serve on the citizens oversight committee..
For years, Cantu used the city’s inability to afford to build a much needed new animal shelter that became extremely inadequate as well as antiquated as an example of the need for Manteca to secure additional municipal funding and make sure facilities needed to serve residents kept up with the growing demand.
The current animal shelter was built 15 years ago.
The sixth fire station might not need Measure Q tax receipts if adequate funding is in the growth fee account by the time ground breaks and if the city is able to secure the needed land at no cost via developer’s donation.
The next community park — at least 50 acres southeast of the Union Road and Lovelace Road intersection — will also be able to tap into community park growth fees currently on hand and what will be collected in the coming years from new home starts.
The spending plan being cobbled together is based on annually using a minimum of $2,663,000 from growth fees currently accumulated in — and will be added to — the government facilties fee account.
Other planned annual expenditures under the scenario staff has designed are $1 million for council priorities envisioned for quality of life efforts such as was done with the leftover pass-thru federal COVID relief funds, $2 million in additional funding for road work, and $850,000 for public safety operations and maintenance.
When all is said and done, roughly $40 million in constant 2025 dollars will be spent on road work in addition to what funding sources the city already taps.
Priority projects will be bolstered by $40 million, and $20 million will be spent on quality-of-life style projects.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
