Carmel‑by‑the‑Sea staff warn of roughly $100M deferred‑maintenance backlog ahead of council budget kickoff

City staff told attendees at a weekly meeting that a special session with the city council on the 24th will mark the start of budget season, when the council will review a five‑year financial forecast and the city’s capital improvement plan (CIP). The officials said the forecast folds in current revenue and expense trends and the city’s planned capital projects.

The meeting emphasized the scale of deferred maintenance facing the city. “It’s 100 million and change,” one speaker said, noting the backlog includes projects the city postponed during the pandemic and routine capital work that has accumulated over time. Staff said the council will spend the budget season deciding how much of that backlog to address and how to sequence capital projects.

“The budget is your budget. We work for you, so come tell us what to do,” the meeting’s moderator said, urging residents to attend budget hearings and provide input on priorities. Staff framed the five‑year forecast as a tool to show how revenues and expenses, plus the CIP, affect what the city can afford in the near term.

City staff did not present detailed program‑level funding allocations at the meeting; they described the session as a kickoff and said more detailed proposals and tradeoffs will be presented to the council at the special meeting on the 24th. The city encouraged public attendance and said it will discuss options for addressing deferred maintenance during the council’s budget deliberations.