Budget & Financial Plans

Purpose of the Budget

To set goals objectives, and service levels for the City to meet during the next year (thus ensuring the provision of City services to Milpitas residents).
To estimate and allocate the money the City will take in and spend during the year.

Current Budget

Plans

Below are the current and most recent Budget and Financial Plan documents available for review and download. For the annual capital improvement programs please follow these links:

Previous Years' Budgets

View previous budget documents in the Archive Center.

Fiscal Year 2023-2024 Annual Budget Development

On January 31, 2023, the City Council kicked off the annual budget process with the Preliminary Fiscal Year 2023 to 2024 Budget Study Session. Staff conducted a robust community outreach program including a multilingual statistically valid poll, a Budget Survey for community input regarding the Council Priority Areas, and virtual community budget meetings. Per the Fiscal Year 2023 to 2024 Budget Calendar (PDF), the City Manager released the Fiscal Year 2023-24 Proposed Budget on April 28, 2023. The Fiscal Year 2023-24 Proposed Budget was presented to Council at the budget study session on May 9, 2023. On June 6, 2023, the City Council held a public hearing and adopted the Fiscal Year 2023-24 Operating Budget.

Budget Survey

As part of this year’s budget process, the City rolled out a supplementary Open Townhall online survey from March 1, 2023 to April 15, 2023 to gather more input from the community. On the question of why one chooses to live in Milpitas, several key themes surfaced - small town community feeling yet located in Silicon Valley, awesome Recreation and Community Services programs, delicious food, warm and welcoming place, connectivity to major thoroughfares, and great schools. We also asked for the community’s top opinion on top information you look for when visiting the City’s website. The top suggestions included: recreation services, reporting an issue, a calendar of events, trash and sewer contacts, and recruitment. These recommendations definitely helped inform City staff in revamping the City’s website.

Citywide Satisfaction Survey

In November 2022, the City contracted with Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (FM3) to conduct a Citywide survey on levels of satisfaction regarding city services (PDF), of which the results (PDF) were presented to Council on January 17, 2023. FM3 is a California-based company that has been conducting public policy-oriented opinion research since 1981 and has worked with hundreds of local government agencies in research and strategic services. In order to conduct a true community satisfaction survey of adult residents, FM3 conducted an “address-based” survey with a combination of phone numbers, emails and residential addresses. The survey data was collected in November 2022 and the survey was available in English, Mandarin, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Both email and mailed postcards were sent to geographical clusters throughout the City directing recipients to complete an online survey and after the first wave was completed, remaining open areas were targeted to complete a telephone survey. Because of the strong response from the community, FM3 was able to provide statistically sound and fully representative results from the adult residents of Milpitas at a 95% confidence interval, higher than originally anticipated, clearly demonstrating that the community is eager to provide their feedback to the City Council and administration and have a very strong favorable sentiment towards Milpitas and the services offered.

Budget Transparency

The Budget Transparency Tool provides residents and businesses with many views of the City’s Fiscal year 2023-24 Adopted Budget and prior year budget and actual revenue and expenditure data. The City encourages viewers to explore trends in revenues and expenditures; drill down into expenses by fund, department, or account type; display the data as graphs or charts; download data into Excel; and send comments directly to the City online.

The 16-page FY2023-24 Budget-in-Brief document (PDF) highlights major investments being made in the City of Milpitas for this fiscal year and provides facts about the City. It presents the major sources of funding and the services provided by the City, including the infrastructure it constructs and maintains. For questions and comments regarding the City’s budget, please email the Budget Division.

American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)

On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which allocated the City of Milpitas $16,736,815. The summary of the programs created with ARPA funding can be found within the City operating budgets.

Appropriations Limit

Article XIIIB of the California State Constitution, more commonly referred to as the Gann Initiative or Gann Appropriations Limit, was approved by California voters in November 1979 and placed limits on the amount of proceeds of taxes that state and local governmental agencies can receive and spend each year. If an agency receives more revenue than the Appropriations Limit, the excess revenue must be returned to the taxpayers through a tax reduction or refund within the next two years. Alternatively, the agency can increase its Appropriations Limit through voters’ approval.