Petaluma City Budget FY2018–2027

General Fund actuals FY2018–FY2025 (audited) · FY2026–FY2027 budget basis · City of Petaluma, CA

FY2026–27 Proposed Budget — Deep Dive · Structural balance, five-year trends, pension obligations, and fact-checks on the city's public communications →

FY25 Actual Spending

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General Fund, audited

Police + Fire Share

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of FY25 actual GF spending

GF Fund Balance

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end FY25 (audited)

Real Growth FY18–FY25

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inflation-adjusted (2018 dollars), FY2018–FY2025

Dollar amounts as reported — not adjusted for inflation or population change.

FY2018–FY2025 figures are audited actuals from the city's Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports. FY2026 and FY2027 are adopted/proposed budget figures.

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Calendar Years 2018–2024

By Department

Source: California Government Compensation in California (GCC) database, published annually by the State Controller's Office. Data reflects actual compensation paid. Individual employee names are not stored.

Note: GCC data is reported by calendar year (January–December), which does not align with Petaluma's fiscal year (July–June). Calendar year 2024 overlaps with fiscal years FY2024 and FY2025. Compensation figures on this tab should not be directly compared to ACFR fiscal year expenditure figures without accounting for this offset.

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Assigned balances are earmarked for specific future uses; unassigned represents truly discretionary reserves. GFOA recommends a minimum of two months of annual operating expenditures (~16.7% of total). Data from City of Petaluma Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports.

Unassigned Fund Balance — Freely Available Reserves

GFOA guidance recommends unassigned fund balance meet the two-month minimum. Assigned reserves are earmarked for specific purposes and may not be available for emergency use.

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The tread water threshold is the minimum annual contribution required to prevent the unfunded pension liability from growing. It has two components: normal cost (the value of pension benefits earned by employees this year) and interest accruing on the existing unfunded liability at CalPERS' 6.8% discount rate. A contribution below this threshold means the liability grows even while payments are being made — similar to paying less than the interest on a debt. A contribution above this threshold reduces the liability.

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Miscellaneous Plan

General employees (non-safety)

Safety Plan

Police & Fire personnel

FY2024 ADC matches the FY2022 figure ($10,234,649) — matches source document; may reflect actuarial smoothing.

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Structural balance measures whether the city's recurring revenues cover its recurring expenditures — independent of one-time items like asset sales, capital spending, or inter-fund transfers. A structural surplus means ongoing operations are self-sustaining. A structural deficit means the city is using one-time money to fund ongoing services. Note: transfers in and out are shown separately because they are financing decisions, not operating revenues or expenditures — their timing varies significantly year to year.

Note: this analysis may show a structural operating surplus even in years where the city's overall fund balance declined. This is not a contradiction. The General Fund's recurring operations — taxes collected, services delivered, departments staffed — have generated modest surpluses in recent audited years. The fund balance declines seen in years like FY2024 were driven by inter-fund transfers out (money moved to capital project funds, debt service, and other funds) — financing decisions that are separate from operating performance. Conversely, the FY2025 fund balance recovery was driven by those same transfers not being executed, not by stronger operations. Structural balance isolates the operating layer from the financing layer so both can be evaluated independently.

All figures are audited actuals from the city's ACFRs, FY2018–FY2025.

Recurring revenues: taxes, charges for services, intergovernmental, licenses/permits/fees, fines, use of money/property, other operating revenues. One-time items excluded: proceeds from sale of assets. Transfers classified as financing activities, shown separately. Recurring expenditures: all departmental operating expenditures. One-time items excluded: capital outlay.

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Net position is the government-wide equivalent of net worth — total assets minus total liabilities, including all long-term obligations such as pension liabilities, OPEB, and bonded debt. It is reported on a full accrual basis (GASB 34), which includes capital assets and long-term liabilities that do not appear in the General Fund statements. Three components are shown: net investment in capital assets (infrastructure, buildings, equipment net of related debt — not spendable), restricted (legally restricted for specific purposes), and unrestricted (the residual available position). A negative unrestricted net position means long-term obligations exceed unrestricted assets — a common condition for California cities with significant pension liabilities.

Government-wide net position differs from General Fund fund balance. The General Fund statements use modified accrual accounting and exclude long-term liabilities including pension obligations. Government-wide statements use full accrual accounting (GASB 34) and include all assets and liabilities. Net pension liability shown here reflects Petaluma's proportionate share of CalPERS pool obligations and may differ from plan-level figures in the Pension Obligations tab.

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Coefficient of variation (CoV) measures year-to-year variability as a percentage of the mean — higher means less predictable. A highly volatile revenue source requires larger reserves to absorb down years. Note that the most volatile categories (Use of money & property, Other) are also the smallest in absolute terms. The most significant volatility risk is in Taxes, which jumped from $29M in FY2018 to $52M in FY2022 when Measure U took effect — creating a high baseline that depends on voter renewal.

Tax Revenue — FY2018–FY2025

CoV calculated on 8 years of audited actuals (FY2018–FY2025). Transfers are excluded from volatility analysis as they are financing activities, not operating revenues. A longer time series will improve the statistical reliability of these measures.

Data from City of Petaluma official records via petalumacivic.org