Published on July 14, 2023
Happy Fiscal New Year! Suisun City’s fiscal year runs July 1st through June 30th, which is why we need to pass a budget every year in June, prior to the expiration of each fiscal year.
Budget:
Speaking of the budget, the largest cost center we have is labor. Staffing and staffing related costs account for the lion’s share of our general fund budget, with Public Safety as the largest cost. Due to the shortage of qualified new police officers nationwide, there has been a significant increase in police officer pay throughout California and specifically in our region. This surge in police officer pay in surrounding agencies, combined with Suisun City’s lowest in the region wages for police officers, has led to a significant turnover in staff over the last year. Given the choice of continuing to be the lowest paid police department in the region and seeing even more losses in sworn personnel or paying a more competitive wage, Council prioritized providing a competitive compensation package for our police officers in order to help retain and attract officers. These raises will put Suisun City police officers at around the median for our comparative agencies. Council also prioritized paying a competitive wage throughout the organization and set all wages to at least 90% of the median of competing agencies. These pay raises do come at a cost and labor costs will be up pretty significantly for this new fiscal year. However, turnover throughout the organization should be reduced, resulting in overall better service to the community.
Looking Forward:
There is a lot going on in Suisun City, as you will see from the rest of this Update. Here are a couple of important projects to highlight for July:
To read more please click on the full report below:
City Manager Report - June 2023(PDF, 3MB)