Monterey council directs NCIP to list projects to freeze to help deficit

MONTEREY – The Monterey City Council voted 4-1 directing the Neighborhood and Community Improvement Program Committee to come up with a list of projects that could total $3-4 million that could potentially be frozen. Councilwoman Jean Rasch was the minority vote.

The council held a joint meeting Tuesday with the NCIP to discuss the option of using funding from the program to fill the city’s $10 million deficit in the 2026-2027 fiscal year budget.

Assistant City Manager Nat Rojanasathira said taking from NCIP funding was the “lesser of multiple evils.” According to city staff the other options would include reducing expenditures, which includes cutting back on staffing and the other is to pull from the economic uncertainty fund or reserves, which staff also recommended against because it was a last resort fund and could impact the city’s credit rating.

Members of the NCIP committee suggested the council decide on the exact number they wanted from NCIP and to let the committee come back with which projects should be frozen.

However, the majority of the council was against asking NCIP to cut back on a lot of projects. Councilman Ed Smith suggested $1-2 million, Councilwoman Kim Barber said $3 million, Rasch said $1 million, Councilman Gino Garcia said $3.5 million and Mayor Tyller Williamson was the lone vote in asking for $8-10 million.

The council did an exercise in September, listing out their ideas and priorities for how the city could find the $10 million in other expenditures, services and departments. A final tally for how much they could save will be discussed in the regular meeting Oct. 21.

Williamson said his thinking was starting with a baseline for what can be cut from NCIP, then subtract from that number after the council finds assured money in their exercise. The rest of the council did not agree, and ultimately council members tried to compromise on about $4 million.