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Costa Transportation Authority.
Thank you. Emily, will you please conduct the roll call?
Commissioner Arnerich? Here. Commissioner Alt Here. Commissioner Gee?
Here. Vice Chair Kelly? Here. Chair Noack? Here. All right, we do have a
quorum. Great. First item on the agenda is public comments.
Are there any members of the public that wish to speak?
We have no public comments written or virtual. Okay, thank you.
Uh that concludes our public comment. The next item on the agenda of chair and
vice chair for 2026. Do I have any nominations for chair and
vice chair? Darlene? Yes, I would like to nominate
Chris Kelly as chair and Newell Arnerich as vice chair.
I'll second that. Sorry.
I guess I wasn't supposed to do that, huh? All right.
Are there any comments or additional nominations from the committee?
Okay. Have we written received any written or
any member of the public wishing to speak? No written or virtual public
comments. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Can we
please conduct the roll call vote? Commissioner Arnerich? Aye. Commissioner
Alt Bernal? Yes. Commissioner Gee? Aye. Vice Chair Kelly? Yes. Chair Noack? Yes.
All right, motion passes unanimously.
I think you're up. I guess I guess so. We change in the middle of the meeting.
Okay. Uh so, the next item is the consent calendar. Does anyone wish to
pull an item?
No. Um Emily, do we have anyone who wishes to speak on the any of these
consent items? We have no public comments written or
virtual. Okay, so bringing it back to the commission here. Uh do I hear a
motion? So moved. Okay, motion by Noack. Is
there a second? >> I'll second it. Seconded by Gee. No
further discussion. Roll call vote, please. Commissioner Alt Bernal?
Yes. Commissioner Gee? Yes. Commissioner Noack?
Yes. Vice Chair Arnerich? Yes. Chair Kelly? Yes.
» Thank you. So, now we're on to our regular agenda items, and the first one
is the legislative update to be introduced by Lindy Johnson.
Good morning, Chair Kelly and commissioners. It is my pleasure to
introduce Mr. Mark Watts, who will start us off with a state legislative update.
We'll then turn to the federal update. Thank you, Mark.
Hey, thank you. Good morning, and I apologize for the somewhat informal
appearance here, but uh I'm in a different time zone, and it's
all great. Uh
so, the budget has been kind of a confounding item for the last
couple weeks since it was introduced. I think the early action item that took
care of the um
the loan legislation has been cleared and behind us. And overall, the the the
budget for transportation was left alone.
Uh the governor remained committed to the
promises that have been made generally over the last couple years with the one
exception for zero emission um electric um
vehicle funding. And there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes to
address that. Um I don't have a lot more to provide this morning on a big picture
um Technically, I think there's a couple
bills I wanted to brought bring your attention to. The first, I just want to
congratulate staff and and others on the work that they did to get the bill
launched that does what deals with your local tax authority. Um
Uh 1408 by Mr. Arkin is in motion and has been introduced, and that's all I'll
say for now. Um
but it it took a lot of work to get to this point, so just congratulations.
The other measure I want to highlight is very confusing, and a lot of folks are
are zeroing in on it. And it's by new Senator Cabaldon, SB
1087, and it deals with the um um planning grants that were part of
SB1, and it would condition the availability of the planning grants to
be to be made to to local entities on some
housing items, and it's not clear exactly how that will work going
forward. So, it's been marked as one of the ones one of the bills that have come
along in the last couple years that try to tie um
changes in housing policy to SB1, and I think the transportation industry has
been very very effective on pushing back on that.
Uh in terms of the I have nothing to report in terms of
legislative appointments or changes in leadership at this point. Uh we're
watching that very carefully. I will remind
you that the late date of late February was February
20th, I think, the date to introduce bills, and as a
consequence, when the the bills that were introduced that late in the session
have 30 days, so late March will be the earliest some of these bills will be
assigned to committees and set for hearing. So, we've got a very very um
uh tenuous next week uh month or two as we
see the bills come through the process and get ready to be set for hearing.
So, that would be my presentation for this morning, and thank thank you.
Thank you, Mark. Um are there any questions here or comments?
Yes, Sue. Sorry.
Um On 1087,
I'll be meeting with Senator Cabaldon on March
19th. Um he invited me to attend with a couple
other elected officials to talk about 1087, so
hopefully I can bring back some clarity on that one.
Um And do we have an outline on the bill
that I have not prepared one for staff yet. I
know our bill for the bill that Sorry.
Are you referring to the fact sheet? Yeah. Yes, so we do have one in process.
We're working with the senator's office to, you know, dot some eyes and cross
some Ts, but we should have one hopefully by the end of the week. Okay.
Okay, any other questions or comments? Yes, Stu. Yeah, I would just add to what
Sue said. I think for the bill that um Jose Aguilar is carrying, I think it's
good that we all make sure that we reach out as board members and thank him for
his efforts. And it's a big lift, but he seems to be
very pleased in doing so. Um the the other bill I would ask that maybe we
weigh in. It's um it's about bicycles, but it's e-bikes.
And, you know, we we help promote complete streets. RBK has her bill
AB 1492.
It's about licensing. And I was remember I was telling her a story that I
remember back in the late 1950s, I grew up out in the Central
Valley. I had to have a license, a metal license that the police department had
to crimp on. And if you didn't have it and you rode
it to school, a police officer occasionally show up,
and they'd take all the bikes without the
um licenses and kind of corral them up, and you couldn't you couldn't get out of
school and ride home cuz your bike was locked up.
So, she's proposed this for the class two, class three bikes. And our police
departments throughout California are are starting
to get together that they would also do the license plates in colors, different
colors, one for a class two, one for a class three. And the reason why there's
no way right now to do any kind of enforcement. You don't know if it's
electric motorcycle or that. They have to spend all those times, so
maybe there might be a way we could weigh in to help support her. She's from
our jurisdiction, and I think it would be good that we could and and
thoughtfully add any comments to that, too. Thank you.
Yeah, that's that's a great suggestion about the different color light plate
license plates because people and school officials and police, they have no idea
which class it is sometimes. And e-bikes are in some instances causing some real
issues. Okay, any other questions or comments
for Mark? Chair Kelly, just Yes. one little comment. So, at planning
committee today, we're actually going to be considering an item to put out an RFP
for a county-wide micro-mobility model ordinance and and basically like a
toolkit for cities to deal with these e-bike issues and and micro-mobility
issues. So, um we're trying to just develop some
best practices cuz we know this is a big issue for all the local jurisdictions.
That's great. Great. Thank you.
Okay, I think we'll >> Mr.
Yes. >> May I just interrupt? I
I'm remiss. I did not mention something that's been very important to me and I
think it's going to be very beneficial for the authority and that is the fact
that on January 1st, I merged with a firm with a led by Senator Bill Dodd.
Yes, we noticed. You may Okay, that's We pay it.
» wanted to acknowledge that and it's it's very helpful for me in doing the work
for you guys, as well as his reach is really really good for the
transportation arena. So, I'm very happy to move forward working together with
him on your behalf. Great. Great. And thank you very much,
Mark. Thank you.
» Okay. All right. So, Mark, thank you for your
comments and Lindy. Thank you, Mr. Watts. I will now
introduce Mr. Jason Tai to provide us a federal update.
Mr. Tai?
Morning. How's everyone doing?
Uh looks like a beautiful sunny day once again in California, so I'm very very
jealous. We've had a full week of cloudiness and rain. So, as always, I'm
just kind of moping around here now. Um but we have been um
continuing to monitor and aggressively pursue a number of different
initiatives. Um but first off, uh wanted to say thank
you for the opportunity to speak here at once again. Uh chair, vice chair,
members, um wanted to give a quick snapshot in terms of what is going on
this session um outside of what we are reading in the news.
Um I think one of the first things that we should probably uh provide a little
perspective on is the uh more rapidly decreasing um kind of thin margins in
the House of Representatives between the Rs and the Ds. Um this does mean that uh
this year the razor-thin majority will result in a lot of challenges in passing
legislative initiatives in the House. Um so, with that in mind, I think there
are probably some expectations that there are will only be a few large items
of note that are will be on the priority. One of them will be the FY
2027 appropriations package. As you may have
seen uh and read and heard from us and from our monthly reports, just within
the last uh month or two, uh Congress finally passed the FY 2026
appropriations bills, uh which includes a number of um allocations, CDPs, CDSs,
or as I still continue to call them cuz I'm older, uh earmarks,
uh within uh all of these various appropriation bills. Um I have to give a
uh spectacular uh shout-out to our amazing congressional delegation.
Um Congressman DeSaulnier simply being a fantastic advocate across the board.
Uh Congressman Garamendi, and I know with Prop 50, there will be some shifts
in in the map. Uh we recently had a meeting, I think, with Congressman Josh
Harder, who winds up picking up um some parts of Contra Costa on the
northeastern side, I believe, along the Delta, northern side. Uh he is a member
of the Appropriations Committee. So, I think he's well positioned to um provide
a lot of support uh for CCTA. So, building back into this FY 2027
appropriations process has begun in earnest.
Uh that will be an initiative that hopefully uh will result in a full year
spending package sometime by the end of this year, uh probably during lame-duck
Congress following in November elections.
Um just met with a senior Democratic member on the House Transportation
Appropriations Subcommittee. Very very inspired that they were able
to work in a bipartisan fashion, the Appropriations Committee, to finalize a
final budget for FY 2026. So, there's an expectation and a hope and a desire that
that will continue to happen through the course of this year. Currently, the
portals have opened for programmatic and various other funding requests. So, that
is moving on a very very quick clip in the House. Uh the Senate has also, I
think, as of tomorrow will close their portals, at least for the two California
senators. So, all of these things that are moving in a much more aggressive
clip than in previous years. So, I'll take a pause there for the
appropriations process um and answer any questions that may be
out there. Um Okay, any questions here?
No. I'm sorry, I thought Sue was Sue. Um I
just left. And Jason, maybe this might not be for you, but to Tim one of the
other. Um do we have an update on the mega grant process? I could see you were
jumping. Yeah, I mean, really positive news. I
mean, I I give all the credit to Stephanie. I mean, she's been really
staying on top of this and making sure we are being very responsible along the
way. Um but we got a really positive email last
week that basically says they're loading the agreement into their system for
execution. Yes. So, we're we're getting closer. We're getting closer. Thank you
all. Great. Any other questions or comments
about appropriations? No? Okay, Jason, do you have more?
Um just a quick snapshot on another large legislative package. Um there is a
desire to pass this by the end of this year, and that is the surface
transportation reauthorization bill, which as you may remember passed in the
earlier part of this decade, which I'm a little concerned that this decade's
moving so quickly for me. Uh but IIJA, which was $1.2 trillion,
uh which included a large number of discretionary programs, all the formula
programs that are pushed out the states and um large urbanized areas through
federal highways, as well as the FTA formula funds, and all of the large
discretionary programs such as BUILD, uh what was previously called TIGER, MEGA,
all of the large discretionary grants that uh CCTA under the leadership of the
board and uh Tim and the rest of the great team and Lindy have been so
successful in winning, including the last $166 million tranche.
Um with this Republican-controlled
Congress, um there is an expectation now, and they've been telegraphing it as
much, that the top lines for funding might be lower than it was before under
IIJA. Um the House has not yet moved in terms
of the Transportation Committee, in terms of the formula programs, in terms
of the discretionary grant programs. They have started preliminary
negotiations between the Republicans and the Democrats in the House T&I
Committee, of which Mr. DeSaulnier is a senior member of, uh as well as Mr.
Garamendi. Um the Senate may actually be moving somewhat
Um it is and I won't bore too much on the detail, but their jurisdiction is
split amongst multiple different committees in terms of who handles
transit, who handles rail, who handles highways. There's a uh some intelligence
coming out, including from the leadership, Republican leadership at the
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, by the majority chair, that
the numbers will be lower, and what that means and I think the impact to CCTA and
many other uh local units of government is that they will
probably plan to push out most of their funding through the formula programs,
which means states will probably get the majority of the funding. Um and
discretionary grants, especially the large discretionary grants that local
units of government and others have so successfully pursued, there's an
expectation that that the the discretionary grants will be either cut,
reduced, or folded into the formula programs. So, that is something to keep
an eye out for. Um and certainly under this current administration, this
current makeup of Congress, things that are considered green, or perhaps um
perceived as left-of-center, um will probably take a lower priority and or
result in some level of cuts. So, um that is more of a makeup of the the the
composition of Congress and this administration, and something we will
continue to work uh to push our priorities, but we do want to level set
that there is a certain level of uh the composition will drive a lot of the
policies. So, we'll take a pause here. Um the only
thing I would add is that the current bill expires at the end of this federal
fiscal year, which also means that they're all trying to get a bill done
before September 30th. The expectation that um a bill will be done by before
then is probably very very unlikely. There's never been a surface
transportation reauthorization package passed on time,
probably since 1982. So, but hey, we could be proven wrong.
So, we'll happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Any questions here from the
commission? Committee.
No. Any comments? No. Emily, do we have any public comment on
this or on state? No public comments written or virtual.
Okay. Well, Jason, thank you very much for your report and thanks for watching
out for us. >> Great to see you and great to see the
sunshine outside.
Wonderful. And I want to thank both Mark Watts and Jason Tai for for their
reports. Okay, so moving on the next agenda item will be the countywide smart
signal project update here and Andy Dillard is going to present this.
Good morning, Chair Kelly and Commissioners.
So, the item before you is seeking approval of resolution 2609P
to authorize approval of construction advertisement for the countywide smart
signals project. So, with final PS&E largely complete for
this project, staff is preparing to submit a request for authorization to
Caltrans to proceed to construction pending issuance of the authorized
authorization to proceed. Staff is prepared to release the project for
construction advertisement anticipated for late March or early April.
So, in summary, as you all know, the the countywide smart signals project
involves all 19 cities in the county. It's a $30.8 million project
funded with 26.5 million in one barrier grant cycle three funds as well as
approximately 3.6 million in local match measure J funds as well as SB1 formulaic
local partnership program funds. So, the project will upgrade now 365
traffic signals across the again all 19 cities in the county. It's going to
enhance the sharing of real-time traffic signal operations information between
the agencies and it's going to also provide a unified
technology communication systems in the form of a countywide center-to-center
advanced traffic management system that'll be hosted here at CCTA.
And this is going to enable the Contra Costa region to advance preparation to
integrate emerging technologies and smart city initiatives going
forward. So, just to review some of the elements
of the project, very similar to some of the earmark projects you've heard
recently. Of course, this is a little more intensive project, but this also
includes implementation implementation of local advanced traffic management
systems as well as the aforementioned countywide center-to-center system.
It includes advanced traffic signal controllers at the cabinets, video radar
detection systems, battery backup systems, communications infrastructure
and cloud-based transit signal priority system.
As with the signal earmark, CCTA will be taking the lead in procurement of all
the equipment and providing that as agency furnished materials to the
contractor. Contractor will be tasked with the installation and the system
integration of of all the equipment. Just to go back a little bit of
background. So, beginning in 2022, this project started with coordination of all
the the agencies in Contra Costa County. We developed stakeholder working groups
developed a concept of operations procured consultant teams. There's two
consultant teams working on this project split between the East and Central
region and the West and South region of the county.
We've been researching and evaluating all the various technologies out there,
hardware and software solutions and all those associated costs and then finally
reviewing and developing this all the stages of the PS&E.
In addition, over the last month and over the next few weeks, authority staff
along with the consultant teams and the equipment vendors have been
visiting the individual agencies one for one-on-one meetings to go over their
systems, make sure they understand them, meet with their IT folks to understand
the the system requirements answer any questions they may have and
we intend to do this uh leading up to construction, of course,
all throughout construction as needed and as requested by the cities.
So, the schedule. So, we're anticipating, as I mentioned at the
beginning, to go advertise for construction in April with
anticipated award in May. We can begin contract execution and then
equipment procurement in June. Equipment procurement can take anywhere from 1 to
3 months depending on the equipment. So, for example, traffic signal
controllers and video detection systems, those are probably a little bit more
readily available, whereas items like traffic signal cabinets, fortunately
there aren't many, but those have longer lead times anywhere up to 4 to 5 months.
So, start of construction is anticipated for July and we anticipate it's going to
take about 11 months to complete the project.
We've had a lot of questions about phasing, how's it going to work? A lot
of it's going to be prescribed by the contractor, but we anticipate that it's
going to be a city by city for efficiency.
Although some of that's going to be prescribed too by the available of the
availability of the equipment as it comes in.
So, with that, staff is seeking approval of resolution 2609P. It will authorize
the executive director or designee to approve the project plans, design and
coordinate in accordance with government code section 830.6 to preserve design
immunity. Two, it to publicly advertise the
construction contract at the executive director designee's discretion. Three,
to approve changes and issue addenda to the bidding documents during the
advertisement period and finally to publicly open all bids received.
So, with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you. Any questions here or comments? Yes, Darlene.
Thank you, Andy. This is stating the obvious, I hope, but
can you share a little bit I assume all of this is completely compatible and
integrated with what we're doing in Danville and Concord and Lamorinda. Can
you talk about that a little bit in terms of how it's all
interfacing with each other? Absolutely. So, the signal earmarks
you've heard to this point, the Danville project, Lamorinda and the Concord
projects, it's all the similar nature as far as
the signal controllers, the video detection systems and the advanced
traffic management system. So, those systems that are going in as part of
those earmark projects, it's all the same
type of equipment and vendors that's included in the countywide signal
project. So, it's it's all compatible. Okay. Noelle. Just a comment. I just
sort of on it's impressive
how how quickly this project's moving forward. It seems incredibly well
organized and it's actually really crucial not
just for some of the things that we just heard
and that's in the report, but also for um
our our countywide evacuation plans. Particularly for a fire.
You know, earthquakes, you're not moving people as much. It's pretty much getting
people into support. But in case of catastrophic fires, we have to move
people. This project is a key solution. We've seen Houston and other places
around the country. So, impressive. We get this done even 11 months, that's
that's pretty good. So, well done. Thanks, Andrew.
Okay. Any other comments here? Yes. Chair Kelly, I just want to mention
so, Daniel Elkins, our deputy executive director of planning, she's actually
participating right now in a countywide Office of Emergency Services workshop.
You know, to and and basically you know, flushing out those things that you just
very much said. And then I think I just want to give credit to Andy here.
Andy's really the one that kind of picked this ball up and ran with it when
he got here and really made this project happen. So, I really appreciate Andy and
all his effort. I mean, this guy's working 12 hours a day trying to get
this thing out the door and all the work and all the hours. And so, just really
appreciate everything you've been doing for these projects and all the work that
you're doing, Andy. Thank you.
And I have a comment. I think this is a
really important project particularly for emergency services, but just also
for you know, helping transit and move things. And I understand that the
Richmond Parkway is not part of this. Is that correct?
It's not included in this countywide signals? Not in this phase, no, it is
not. So, the Richmond Parkway is kind of like an abandoned child. You know, it's
like part of it is in Richmond, part of it is in the county. Nobody owns it. So,
when staff initially went and asked about, you know, what are the important
routes that we might, you know, apply the signals project, nobody brought that
up. And at WICTAC, you know, had we known about that and have been we've
been allowed to kind of comment on that, we would have added it on because right
now the traffic in the after going northbound on the Richmond Parkway is
just jam-packed. And if the signals were more reasonably timed, we could save
like, you know, 13 to 14 minutes in traffic and it's getting worse and worse
and worse. The Richmond Parkway is a route of regional significance.
So, going forward, I think just just highlight sort of, you know, regional
coordination and consultation. So, I just want to point that out. And
hopefully at some point we can get smart signals project on that uh abandoned
child. Thank you. Actually, I'd just add a
comment. I was just there yesterday and I've been keeping track over the past 12
months. So, I end up going through there particularly during rush hours. There's
actually only one signal that's it's a mess.
It takes I don't care if there's four cars or 300 cars.
It takes three signal cycles to get through that intersection.
» Which one is that? Do you recall? I I It's if you're coming if you're heading
east, I guess you'd call it. >> Yeah. You came off of um
580. >> Yeah. Um it would be 1 2 3. It's about
the fourth signal. I think I know what you're talking about.
» always the same. Yeah. It's it's disconnected from everything else and I
don't know who owns that what what jurisdiction, but there can be no cars
Yeah. trying to get through from the other way and this timing device just
stalls. And it it took us exactly I told my wife
just wait, it'll be three complete cycles. It took us three times to get
through there. Yeah, so that just just highlights one of those. Like I said,
the Richmond Parkway is an abandoned child. At one point, you know, we tried
to get Caltrans take it over and they just they wouldn't do it. So, hopefully
in the future um something can be done there.
Sure Kelly, just really quick. I mean, I was I met with um Shasha Curl from the
city manager Richmond and and she also brought this to my attention, you know,
and so we're I think we're we're we'll be looking at that in terms of like a
tap and all these things. I think to your point, I think it's a really
important critical link in our network and I think it's really important that
we you know, prioritize it. The one thing though I I is and we'll take we'll
This is good information. We'll take this back and and see how we can
potentially look at how we address the signal sync synchronization on the
corridor. I mean, one just me and Ryan were just talking one potential option
would be to a congressional earmark um and just put in a congressional earmark
just for rich just for Richmond Parkway. So,
um so let's we'll take it back and see if we can make things happen. Okay, that
that would be great. Okay, any other comments?
Yes, Andy. >> Uh yeah, I'd just like to add to I I
appreciate the kudos, but I also want to give a shout-out to our stakeholder
working group. So, we just to add a little bit more to that, we had a core
working group uh which was uh a select group of mostly traffic engineers uh
throughout the cities as well as a larger stakeholder working group.
And then the two consultant teams I I mentioned in the AMG staff. There's been
a lot of folks involved in this project including our new executive deputy
director projects. So, um it's been a really uh
a huge team effort. So, and it's going to be to get this to the finish line.
So, I just wanted to make sure that we acknowledge them too as well. So,
Great. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Um Emily, are there any public comment
on this item? No public comment written or virtual.
Okay, so before us I believe we have a resolution. I would move the item um as
presented here today. Thank you. >> Okay, so motion by Arnerich and is is
there a second? >> I'll second. Uh seconded by Bernal.
No more discussion. Okay, roll call vote, please. Commissioner Bernal.
Yes. Commissioner Gee. Yes. Commissioner Noack.
» Yes. Vice Chair Arnerich. >> Yes. Chair Kelly. Yes. The motion passes
unanimously. Great. Thank you. And Andy, thank you for all your work on this.
It's wonderful. Okay, so our next item is the approval
of the fiscal year 25-26 mid-year budget uh for the authority and the congestion
management agency and this will be presented by Ru- Yuli Chang.
Thank you. Good morning, Chair and Commissioners. I'm Yuli Chang, finance
manager for CCTA. I'm pleased to present the fiscal year
25-26 mid-year budget for both the authority the authority and um the CMA.
This morning, I'll briefly walk through what has changed since the budget was
last adopted in June, uh what has remained the same, and what
those updates mean for uh the the rest of the fiscal year.
Overall, the authority's financial position remains stable. Most of the
adjustment you'll see today are uh
us an opportunity to review how revenues and and expenditures are tracking at the
midpoint of the fiscal year. And third, it uh aligns project and program budget
uh with their current implementation timeline. Program allocations continue
to follow the voter approved Measure J sales tax percentages and the program uh
the uh capital commitments remains consistent with prior board approved uh
funding resolutions. So, overall, this update simply helps ensure the project
to reflect how projects are actually uh progressing this year.
So, I'll start with the main take takeaway. We're proposing a 32.2 million
reductions to the overall budget, bringing it from 203.2 million down to
171 million. I'd like to emphasize a point an
important point here. This uh reduction reflects uh timing, not cuts. There are
no program eliminations, no policy changes, no changes to the Measure J
funding allocations. Most of the adjustments are related to
construction schedule shift between fiscal year and reimbursement timing
from partner agencies. So, while the total annual number uh
decreases, the actual project commitments remain the same.
This slide gives a high-level snapshot of the adjustments that make up that
32.2 net reductions. The staff report includes the full details, but overall,
the changes are largely driven by project schedule shifts and
reimbursement timing. Over the next few slides, I'll walk
through the major revenue and expenditure categories behind those
changes.
Uh let me start with the revenues. Sales tax uh revenues steady at about 120
million based on the uh the latest projections from our
consultant HDL and our current collections, sales tax performance has
been essentially flat year over year. So, we're not recommending any change to
the forecast at this time. Investment income uh
on the other hand is performing slightly better than expected. We're increasing
the investment income by about 988,000, bringing to the revised total to 5.9
million. This mainly reflects stronger investment
earnings on reserve balances and debt service funds, which continue to support
the authority's financial position.
Sales tax uh This actually this chart gives us a visual view of sales tax
performance. As you can see, revenues has been uh have been fairly steady. Um
Last fiscal year, we closed at about 120 million, just a little over 20 120
million. And we're projecting about the same level this year. So, there's uh at
this point, there's no change at the adopted forecast.
Next are the grant revenues tied to capital projects. We're increasing grant
revenues to about 1.2 million, bringing the revised total to 30.5 millions.
Many of these grants are uh they operate on a reimbursement timing. So, the uh
timing of project activity can affect when uh those revenues show up in a
given fiscal year. Example this year include adjustments related to
right-of-way work for the I-80 uh SR 4 interchange project, uh schedule
updates for the I-80 I-80 San Pablo Dam Road improvements, and final billings
for the Iron Horse Trail overcrossing project. Again, these are schedule
adjustments rather than funding changes.
On the planning and CMS side, we continue to receive surface
transportation program and PPM funds uh along with other reimbursements for
projects such as the uh San Pablo multimodal
um effort and street light data analysis.
We're receiving uh 1.6 million in transportation fund uh
for clean air and along with uh about 5.8 million in local contributions to
support initiatives like safe street for all county wide smart signal and other
partner supported projects. This funds help leverage local resources
to support planning and mobility initiatives across the county.
Turning to Sorry, I think I skipped one. All right.
So, turning to project expenditures, we are decreasing the project
expenditures by 11.3 million bringing the revised total to roughly about 20
32.2 million. The largest adjustments are related to
construction schedule updates including the SR 239 schedule refinement,
environmental phase timing for the I-80's SR4 interchange project, right of
way timing for the I-80 projects, and several components of the innovate 680
shifting into fiscal year 27. Several non-Measure J projects are also
shifting into fiscal year 27 including county smart signals, the Antioch bike
garden, Lamorinda signal improvements, and SS4A corridor planning work.
Again, these changes mainly reflect timing between fiscal years.
Program expenditures decreased slightly by about 1.8 million bringing the
revised total to 76.6 million. Program
This program includes the bus services, ferry service, TLC, pet by commute
alternatives, and paratransit all funded according to the
Measure J expenditure plan. The adjustments mainly reflect
updated spending schedules and reimbursement timing.
One item worth highlighting is return to source funding for local and subregional
street maintenance which remains fully funded.
That allocation continues at the about at 20.09%
of sales tax revenues totaling about 24.1 million this year.
Planning expenditures decreased by about 2.3 million bringing the revised total
to 4.7 million. These changes simply aligns the planning
budget with the contracts and work that are actively
underway this year. Major efforts including CMA support and
county wide transportation plan update, big data initiatives, San Pablo Avenue
multimodal of effort and county wide emergency evacuation study.
So, administrative expenses also decreased but it's really slightly to
about 4 million. Salaries and benefits represent about 0.91% of sales tax
revenue which remains comfortably below the 1% administrative
cap on under Measure J. Professional services costs are also
trending lower than originally projected.
Debt service funds remains unchanged at 42.9 million
including 28.5 million for principal and 14.5 million for uh
interest. All obligations remain fully on schedule.
In term of staffing, the authority currently has 27.5
authorized positions with 27.4 full-time equivalents filled.
Uh pension contribution rates remain stable at 11.94%
for classic and 7.96% for PEPRA members or employees.
Our other post-employment benefits obligations remain fully funded and
overall we continue to
maintain a strong long-term financial position.
So, to summarize, sales tax revenues remain stable. Investment income is
performing slightly above projections. Grant revenues reflect normal
reimbursement timing. Most expenditure adjustments are tied to project schedule
shifts between fiscal years. Administrative costs remain below the
Measure J cap and debt service obligations remain fully on track.
So, overall the proposed budget adjustments reduce the budget by
32.2 million from 203.2 million to 171 million primarily due to project timing.
And importantly, no policy changes are included in this update.
Staff recommends adoption resolution 25-12-A
revision one to approve the fiscal year 25-26 Measure budget. And Chair, that
concludes my presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Great. Thank
you. Any questions here? No? Uh Yuli, thank you for that. Brian?
» Thank you. This is always fascinating. It is always complicated because
we give away everything we do in the end and the timing is very complex.
Um just as a small suggestion, we always
list because we're cash basis. Um you know, how much is going to
principal, how much is going to interest. I want to see the declining
number just as And by the way, our outstanding total debt is X because that
way the next time I see I'll go, "Wow, we dropped 40 million."
It just be nice to know. We are on a a vent horizon out to 2034. It's just kind
of nice to see that. And I think we ought to be
you know, highlighting it because it's important in our process, renewals, and
everything where we're at. So, just a small suggestion. Otherwise, this
is fantastic news. Thank you. Thank you. And that would also just show that, you
know, we're responsible in in paying for everything on the time schedule. That'd
be great. Any other questions here or comments?
» Ron, yes. Yeah, thank you, Yuli. On the sales tax
revenue projections, it shows 63.99 million for the first 6 months and then
120 million for the whole year. Does that Does it drop down in the second
half of the year as far as it's not 50/50, obviously, correct? Yes, thank
you for your questions. When when it comes to budgeting
revenues, we always try to be conservative. So, currently, as as you
mentioned, we we already at the midpoint of the fiscal year and it shows a little
above the half of the 120 which is 63 which is a little over.
So, I think we're projecting we might be a little over, you know, like 1 or 2%
this year than our projected and that'd be good
because we try to build up our reserve at the
same time for any, you know, financial issues or any anything that might come
up later. All right. Thank you. Yes, Brian? Just
really quick. When you think about sales tax, sales
tax in the holiday season, in the second quarter of the fiscal year, it'll always
be higher because of the extra expenses. Gas prices go up, consumer spending goes
up, those type of things. And then so, that's always our biggest quarter of the
year. So. Okay. And then also noticing that the the um
the investment income is up about a million
dollars which is good. Do we see that trend continuing as well
or is it hard to is it hard to tell right now with
all the uncertainty around the world? Our consultant investment consultant
PTM, in the beginning, we heard that they're
projecting there will be interest rate reductions. And that's why from the
beginning we tried to like slow down the investment income. But
as we we are now, we don't see that many decrease in term of the reduced
reduction of interest and rate. So,
we will just keep it this way for now and then as we continue meet with our
consultant, we will update again, you know, whether it should be higher or
will stay the same or yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's not it's not a lot but a
million dollars is a million dollars. So, it's always nice to get a little
more money. So, thank you. It's significant. Yes.
Okay. Any other questions here? Um I have one small one and maybe this
is too much in the weeds. On slide nine, your gross expenditures, under the
subregional projects, what is the subregional Marner Martinez railroad, I
guess, improvements? Um increased expenses of 532,000. What
is that project? Ishaan?
Yeah, that's that's actually uh the
expansion of the parking lot as well as the pedestrian bridge that were
completed many years ago. However, we just
got the final bill. Uh Oh, wow. Uh
Because of a legal there is litigation on the project. So, we just got the bill
from the city. That's why it's showing up.
Okay. All right. So, nothing more is going to be happening there. It seems to
work now. Okay, thank you. Any others? Uh
Emily, do we have any public comment on this item? No public comment written or
virtual. Okay, so we do have a resolution before
us for the mid-year budget. So moved. Okay, motion by Noack. Is
there a second? I'll second it. Seconded by G. Any further discussion? No. Roll
call vote, please. Commissioner Arbronn? Yes. Commissioner G? Yes. Commissioner
Noack? >> Yes. Vice Chair Arnerich?
» Yes. Chair Kelly? Yes. And motion passes unanimously. Thank you.
Okay, so our last um item for today uh is the overview of consultant costs
for fiscal year 24-25, and Ryan McLane is going to present this
one.
Thank you, Chair Kelly. Good morning, commissioners.
All right, so uh this is following up on Julie's report on the mid-year budget.
We thought this would be a good time to kind of take a deeper dive into some of
our our consultant costs that we have every year.
Uh this is jumping back to fiscal year 24-25 just cuz that was the last
complete year, and with invoices coming in it's tough at different times it's
tough to do sort of a mid-year snapshot. So, this is the full 1-year snapshot
from 24-25. Uh and our intention here is that we
would actually come back every year that we do the mid-year budget and go through
these numbers cuz again, since this is a snapshot it's it's not this is going to
evolve over time in terms of where these costs are going.
So, CCTA uses staff for a variety or consultants for a variety of reasons. Uh
this is for staff augmentation, uh it's to bring in expertise and
outside perspectives that we may not have internally.
Uh it's to accommodate the fluctuations in workload, and also reduce fiscal
liability in terms of taking on additional staff internally that we are
then having pensions and etc. for.
And I hope you like pie charts. There's a lot of pie charts. That's not a pie
chart. It will be.
I just want Uh so, I thought I'd start with our
revenue from 24-25. Uh this is uh
172 million in change spread across several different areas. Obviously, most
of this is coming from our sales tax that has remained around 120 million as
discussed earlier. Uh and then we've got income coming from local in the form
mostly of of match for grants that we've gone after uh especially on the smart
signal side. Um we've got some state grants in there,
uh federal grants, and then investment income, that sort of thing.
So then, where does the money go out of?
I'm not sure why those other labels aren't showing up.
Let me pull that up on here.
Yeah, the labels aren't coming up. So, I'm going to describe the labels to you.
Uh so, uh
uh this is a pretty well split out pie chart and kind of spread evenly across
several different areas. Uh the local street maintenance is on there as the
orange. Uh other programs like bus services, paratransit is the green.
Project expenditures, so that's direct expenditures onto various projects is
the lighter blue uh 42 million. We had uh 26 million or excuse me, 44
million in debt services, and about 26 million in other expenses, and that was
things such as as uh administration and uh CMA, and
the fur fund, go momentum station accounts, those types of things.
So, I wanted to break out the chunk of this that is going towards consultants.
And initially, I'm going to talk about consultants in kind of a broad term, and
that's going to include construction contractors, that's going to include
public agencies who were paying to support projects such as City of
Richmond helping us deliver the I-80 Central project. So, that's included in
this 41 million. Uh we pay the county to do a lot of our right-of-way work,
that's included in this. Uh it's also including vendors, so Beep and May
Mobility that are running our that we're running our ADS programs are also
included in this 41 million.
So, in terms of type of of consultants and costs that this is going to, the
biggest chunk is going to the engineering and planning work, and
that's to push both our plans and our and our projects forward uh with
consultants. Uh
you see that big chunk of public agency cost, that's what I was talking about in
terms of having public agencies support us on projects.
Uh vendors, um communications is basically all the
different outreach efforts that we've done.
Uh office expenses and for this year was primarily the remodel that we did. So, a
lot of that shows up here, that's why that cost is a bit higher than usual. Um
university, that's our partnership with UC Berkeley and their support on
projects. Uh
and then construction contractor is actually that's primarily the Bollinger
Overcrossing is where that was going.
So, this gets into the actual consultants that were on this. Uh one
thing to note on this, this does include subconsultant costs within the prime
consultant. So, uh Myers Schimek had a bunch of subcontractors that was that
were working on the Bollinger Overcrossing. AMG has a lot of
subconsultants that work under their contract, that's all grouped into this
total cost that is shown for each consultant.
This graph is the uh and I should say we had around 100 payees for that year. So,
this is basically the top 10 or so for contracts that were over 900,000
combined. So, this also doesn't break out individual agreements, this is the
total agreements for each of those consultants.
So, uh we have Myers Schimek that was working on the Bollinger Overcrossing.
AMG uh does this is for our PMO work, but also direct project support, it's
also including 511, uh and also a lot of pass-throughs to their to consultants or
subconsultants that they have on board. Uh
WSP is on Innovate 680. AECOM is supporting on San Pablo Dam Road
interchange. WMH is on the 684 interchange. Uh Fair & Piers, this was
primarily working on the countywide transportation plan.
Uh Beep was for the ADS for the SAV
grants. And Kimley-Horn working uh on the smart
signals and I believe the safety action plans, and it goes on from there. So,
these are kind of our biggest expenses that we had back in 2024-2025.
So, I wanted to kind of break out just that engineering and planning piece so
we can kind of get a little bit more down into the details of the consultants
helping us deliver projects.
So, that brings that total to 22 million
where we're dividing that up into a pie on there is uh
well, that orange cost is the is AMG. I'll figure out why these labels are not
showing up on this on the presentation, but uh
so, that's they're the the biggest piece of that,
and then again, you'll see this has removed the
contractor costs, so Schimek is no longer showing up on here, and also
removes the vendors, and removes the uh the public agencies as well. So, that
takes us down to 22 million total, and added a couple more uh consultants on
there at the bottom to kind of show everything that's down to 300 contracts
that are 350,000 or above. So, that's what this is showing.
I also wanted to just show an example of a project that we're working on. This is
both kind of wrapping up some of the construction of the earlier phases and
moving towards the construction of the next phase, so a lot of expenditures
going on on this one. And so, the largest chunk of this is WMH
who's leading the design for this project. Uh the next cost is actually
the sanitary district because due to them designing their relocations and
actually started to do some of the relocations that are required for this
project. Uh AMG is next, they're providing the PMO support on this
project, but also this was around 100,000 that was spent to go after
grants which resulted in 58 million dollars awarded to this project, so AMG
led those efforts as well. And uh let's see, Parsons is working on
the trail connector that's part of the mitigation for this project looking at
the Iron Horse Trail to Canal Trail connector. So, that's what the cost is
for Parsons. Um Fehr & Peers has been working on the
traffic. And so, those are really how a typical
project gearing up for construction. This is how we see this layout.
I think we're going to see a a big change in all of this as we move into
the next couple years as we enter into you know, we've got $600 million of
construction coming up. So, it's going to change a lot of how this all lays
out. But, this is the type of fluctuations
from design or environmental into design into construction where those
fluctuations it's really important to have these consultants come to help kind
of smooth that workflow out.
So, that's the end of the presentation. Happy to revisit any of that. Also, just
want to thank Brian and Yuli for all their support on helping me put this
together. Great. Great. Thank you. Any questions
here? Yeah, Darlene. Thank you very much, Ryan.
If you can, can you and Tim explain a little more about how you balance? I
mean, I think we all understand if you have a a significant size discrete
project that's going to design or construction or whatever you're doing a
standalone RFP for that. But, um I'm curious how you're deciding to balance
what AMG is doing versus some of those other consultants that have overlapping
skills like Fehr & Peers and Kimley-Horn and things like that in terms of
balancing the efficiency of what you're getting out of AMG's contract versus
um some of those other consultants. I'm just curious how that thought process
goes. Yeah, thanks for that question. Uh so, I
do want to point out that around 1.2 million of that 5 million uh plus was
going towards consultants with direct path through to subconsultants.
And so, that is providing us
somewhat of a mechanism to get broader uh
resources from that contract. So, that does take that number down a bit. Um
but, otherwise I think you know, this is a lot of direct project support and then
a fair amount of 511 CCTA. So, these are these aren't necessarily giving
additional it just takes a lot to run those
projects and manage the consultants that are working on those projects. So,
that's really the role that AMG is taking on with those. I wouldn't say
that they're getting um a a lot of extra work that isn't kind of
those core roles.
No? Yeah, just maybe maybe just to quickly
add. I think it just to build on what Ryan was saying. I think the the key for
us is just using AMG as an extension of staff. I mean, they're basically helping
us like review these consultant invoices, you know, processing and
contracts and agreements, you know, working with stakeholders, you know,
attending Caltrans PDT meetings. I mean, it's it's really an extension of staff
that they're that they're serving, you know, for CCTA because
as you can tell by the project portfolio, I mean, it's this is this is
more work than like, you know, Stephanie and and all of us here, you know,
Hisham, all of us here can can handle on our own in terms of all the meetings,
the contracts, the agreements, the invoices, all these things and you know,
and so we're a small team and so I think managing a large portfolio of projects
and so we're trying to really balance like, you know, making sure that you
know, what we have done in the past is that, you know, when we hire these
consultants do the work, I mean, they're doing the core the core work, you know,
based on scope, you know, they're doing the design, the right-of-way, the PAED,
the planning, the I mean, they're really doing the deliverables, right? And I
think that's probably the balance is really comparing it to like the actual
deliverables versus like the administration. And so, I think what AMG
is helping us with is that administration, you know, in terms of
like I mentioned earlier like, you know, the the invoices, the contracts, the
agreements, the you know, um the meetings and preparing for
meetings and all those things. And then CCTA staff, depending on how big the
project is cuz there are I mean, there's a lot of us here that actually manage
projects on our own without AMG support, too. But, it depends on the nature of
the project. And so, we we rely on them to kind of organize, you know, the
project and kind of keep everyone on task, you know, particularly the
consultant, you know, and so so that's how we use, you know, AMG in that and
then I think Ryan also mentioned it. The other key component I think AMG serves
is on the grant side of things. And so, so that's another big component of this
is really focusing on like, you know, you know, the TCIF grant and all these
other things. I mean, they do have a provide a core function to help us
secure additional funding for all of these projects.
Hopefully that's helpful. Yeah, I guess I would
and so, um given that they have so many subconsultants, too, like um I'm just
curious if you have like if you have a really small need like like let's say
you need $30,000 worth of traffic engineering. Um is that going to one of
AMG's subconsultants that or AMG, you're not you're not doing a standalone RFP
for something that small, right? Yeah, that's correct. And that's exactly
kind of the team that AMG pulled together for this contract is to
basically serve a wide variety of needs that could come up for exactly that
reason. I think the the grant application for uh 684 is a good example
where we needed to do a benefit cost analysis that
really the the consultant on board and and
uh even AMG couldn't do on their own. So, we're able to have Fehr & Peers work
on that. It Yeah, maybe just just to add really
quick. I mean, in that 5 million there's a there's a lot there, right? There's
there's the PMO, there's 511, there's support for innovate 680. They also have
con they actually have project agreements contract project agreements
to deliver the ADS, the automated driving system in the mod grant. So, the
PMO of that 5 million is actually roughly about 3.6 million. It's it's
it's not the entire 5 million. And then roughly about 3.6 of that million, I
mean, a good portion of that is going to
subconsultants. And and so, like for example, um on right-of-way like ARWS,
that's a sub to AMG. They're supporting us on you know, um
on the 684 project, you know, in terms of the dealing and and taking on that
owner the owner responsibility CCTA's owner responsibility around the
right-of-way. So, that's being handled under AMG's contract. So, so yeah, I
mean, the the purpose of the contract is just to give us a wide variety of
support to be able to deal with any issues that are arising as we're moving
through any of the, you know, planning program and project delivery.
Yeah. Thanks. Noel.
Uh yeah, I just had a little bit on that. You know, that's one of the
reasons why we do these on-call agreements so we can pick up these
things as come. And and I have to admit the one thing that was most impressive,
nobody's as good as AMG as getting grants. I mean, they've helped us on
every major grant that we have. And um you know, it's something that
most of us cities I wish we could afford. But, the fact is their track
record uh speaks for itself. But, I just have to say I think this is actually one
of the best presentations that we've seen on this.
It's very simple. It's straightforward. And I think we ought to um
institutionalize this. Make it an annual touch base. You know, it I mean, other
than the questions cuz it's the first time we've really seen this.
It's a 10-minute presentation. I think we all need to see this.
And I think it kind of makes us as transparent as possible. I think this is
really well done. So, thank you.
Yeah, just really quick sorry, Chair Kelley. I think just on that point and
Ryan and I have talked a lot about that. This is the first time we've ever done
this. This is the first time we And then we
did this in response, you know, to some of the comments that we've gotten from
APC in the board. And so, um and I think this is really helpful. And I think our
plan, um Commissioner Arnrich, is that it was we would do this presentation
every year at the same time as the midyear budget. That's that's that's the
goal. That's that's kind of what we're planning on doing, you know, and so
every year we do the midyear budget and then we have this presentation to kind
of share where kind of where the consultant costs are at. I think that's
good timing, you know, relative to um this content in the presentation.
Yeah, I I I would agree. It it it really is good because when we see all of these
consultant agreements come one by one throughout the year as Sue has said,
it's just very very confusing. So, um this is really great. And then on the
large dollar amounts when you can break them down a bit into who's working on
what exactly that is also helpful, too. Thank you.
Okay. Uh yes, Ryan. >> Yeah, thank you, Ryan. It's excellent. I
agree with everybody that, you know, this is something we want to continue
with. Um and I like the way it drills down, you know, it starts big and then
it gets smaller, see examples. The only question I would have is, you know, this
is from this is the last fiscal year, right? And we're already 7 8 months into
the new fiscal year. Is there is there a way to show the first 6 months of the
new year somehow without complicating this? Because, you know, it's really
we're really always looking forward, right? And so, we're just a a few months
behind on what's really happening for this year.
Yeah, we did look at basically year-to-date fiscal year-to-date data.
The challenge is that we make a big push to make sure everybody gets their
invoices in at the end of the fiscal year and make sure that we get our
reimbursements done through the through the grants. And so,
looking at the data for the first half of the 25 26 fiscal year, it just
it wasn't very reflective of halfway through the budget. So, I think that's
the challenge with it is that we just don't do this big mid-year push to get
all the everybody to make sure their invoices are all in. So, that's where I
just be a little bit concerned about it not kind of providing
the the full picture on that. I mean, we could do this presentation
earlier and kind of decouple it from the mid-year budget. I mean, I I think yes,
I think it's fine with the mid-year. It's just uh I was just curious. I know
if it doesn't if it doesn't serve any purpose, then it isn't worth the brain
damage, but you know, if if it does, then um that's fine. So, this is this is
great though. Thank you. Darlene. Darlene. Um yeah, the only other um I I
agree with everyone. This is this is great and I think this is important and
good for us to see. Um I think going forward as um
my suggestion would be given how much construction contracting we've got
coming up, it would be nice to you know, break that out, split the consultant um
part from the contracting part so that we can see it a little bit more clearly.
Yeah, makes sense. >> And so, I would just say so, this is all
based on the invoices that have been paid rather than just the amounts that
were appropriated in the resolutions. And if we wanted to look forward as Ron
was possibly suggesting, we would just be looking at the approved amount
agreement amounts even though the invoices had not come in.
True. Yeah, and we could use that mid-year budgets. It I mean, we could
look at how much is budgeted and how much we expect to see each consultant.
Yeah. >> Uh that could be a second part of this.
But, basically It's a little hard to do because one of those contracts is
you know, they have to on on-call contract. It's there in case you need
it. So, trying that I just don't know how you would do that.
Yeah, I I think keep it simple.
Let's kiss each other here and keep it simple because it gives us the point in
time 8 weeks after the end of the first 6 months. I think it's a perfect window.
Um you know,
um and it's a good first step. So, let's
not, you know, add too much I was going to suggest at
this point because I think we have some you know, newer members here who have no
background. So, I think the way you presented it is very simple for people
to see. I think I'd start here. And if people ask more questions as we go along
after a couple of these, great. We can expand it.
All right. Okay, so we'll see how it goes over at
the full authority board meeting. See what kind of questions we've got. Sounds
good. Thank you, Ryan. Appreciate it. Is there any public comment, Emily, on any
of these? No public comment written or virtual. Okay, great.
Okay, thank you, everyone. Um so, that's the last of our regular items.
Correspondence communications, I don't think we have any.
Uh commissioner and staff comments, I don't have any. Other commissioner
comments? I just want to say, but she left. I just want to make sure we said
thank you to Sue. Given how busy that woman is on MTC, um
which is a 2-year commitment, it's almost a full-time job, and the mayor,
uh just to say thank you for ABC. And I think she left so fast cuz she was good
to have to not to run into anything. Yeah, yeah, and she had to get to
another um event. Okay. So, thank you. Um any executive staff comments? No
executive executive staff comment. Okay, thank you. So, we will now adjourn and
our next meeting is on April 2nd at 8:30 a.m. Thank you, everyone.