Corte Madera's budget picture dims: paramedic revenue drying up, sales tax softening, IT risk rising

Town finance staff walked the Finance Advisory Committee through an updated 10-year General Fund forecast that looks noticeably tighter than in years past, driven mainly by the loss of paramedic billing revenue tied to a restructuring of the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority. As staffer Chris put it, the town has "had a great deal for a long time collecting that paramedic revenue," but now "looks a lot like a lot of other cities and towns where a significant portion of general fund revenue needs to be going into public safety."

“The actors that are doing this are very well-funded, very complex, very sophisticated, and it's just a little town going up against some pretty bad actors.”— Chris, Finance staff, on cybersecurity risk

Sales tax projections are also being trimmed after the town's tax consultant, HDL, began "sounding the alarm bells" back in February about a statewide softening, cutting this fiscal year's estimate by 8% and projecting a further 10% drop next year. Committee member Larry pointed to vacant storefronts around town — "we've got an empty Raid and we've got an empty Macy's" — as a visible sign consultants are already pricing in, while staff noted electric-vehicle dealerships remain among the biggest single contributors to the town's sales tax base.

The committee also pressed staff on cybersecurity spending, since the town relies on a contracted regional IT firm, Marin IT, rather than in-house staff. Chris was blunt about the mismatch in resources: "The actors that are doing this are very well-funded, very complex, very sophisticated, and it's just a little town going up against some pretty bad actors." The town's auditors are pressing on the same issue, with a call scheduled to review IT safeguards.

A new draft Equipment and Technology Fund aims to get ahead of big, lumpy replacement costs — like a projected nearly $600,000 jump in fiscal year 2033-34 for town hall servers — rather than reacting when, as Chris put it, "the mower's broken again." Staff also flagged that January's courtyard flooding exposed a gap: water damage is typically excluded from insurance. The committee separately raised doubts about the plan's 8% annual healthcare cost assumption, noting real-world small-business rate hikes have run as high as 15-23%, and asked that the town's investment advisers for its 115 pension trust come present an update, since the trust's risk guidelines haven't been reviewed in years.