City Manager’s Office
DATE: May 6, 2026
TO: Council Policy and Procedures Committee
FROM: Kimberly S. Thomas, Deputy City Manager
Albena Goulisheva, City Manager’s Office Intern
Angelina Gaddi, City Manager’s Office Intern
VIA: Kimbra McCarthy, City Manager
SUBJECT: Update on Council Priority to Update Council Policies, Legislative/Contract Templates, and Other Documents
BACKGROUND
The FY 2025-2027 City Council Work Plan prioritizes updating Council Policies, legislative/contract templates, and other documents based on staff recommendations and capacity. The City has a large number of policies, legislative and contract templates, and other documents. Due to this volume and staff capacity, these have historically been updated on an as-needed basis in response to changes in process, new State or Federal legislation, or newly adopted City strategies or plans.
This Council Priority has enabled staff to take a more comprehensive look at these templates/policies, including in particular, the Council policies, and to develop a framework for analyzing potential updates.
To implement this Council Priority, staff focused on three distinct components of the goal to: (1) provide a review of all Council Policies, (2) provide information about the latest updates to legislative/contract templates, and (3) other documents. The next section outlines the approach, including initial staff-level feedback, a framework to analyze the Council Policies, the status of legislative/contract templates, and other documents.
ANALYSIS
Council Policies
To address the first component, the City Manager’s Office cataloged and created a comprehensive spreadsheet of all current City Council Policies to share with staff for context and review. Staff emailed a 9-question survey to Department Heads, Division Heads, and Executive Update on Council Priority to Update Council Policies,
Legislative/Contract Templates, and Other Documents
May 6, 2026
Assistants to gather feedback. Following the survey, staff conducted a preliminary review and validation of the feedback and developed an analysis framework (Attachment 1).
In addition, the comprehensive spreadsheet captures the date each policy was last approved and/or revised, along with the lead department. The Community Development Department added eleven (11) additional notes to the spreadsheet, which staff incorporated into the survey results and feedback.
The analysis framework categorizes staff recommendations into three levels of recommended change: minor, moderate, and major.
Minor Changes—require small, low-impact, largely administrative-level adjustments that are easily fixed, such as changes in a job title or pronoun.
Moderate Changes—require more modification and have increased policy-level impact, requiring more attention or resources to review, such as workflow or alignment with current processes, plans, or strategies.
Major Changes—require substantial policy implications and more attention or resources to review, such as updates required by newly adopted plans or strategies.
Table 1 - Summarizes the Survey Results
SUMMARY OF COUNCIL POLICIES SURVEY RESPONSES
Total Council Policies 90
Total survey responses 12
Departments represented 8
Policies to update 22
Policies to consider rescinding 6
Policies creating barriers 2
Total Council Policies identified by Staff Feedback 30
The survey identified twenty-two (22) Council Policies for updating and expressed a need for greater clarity in definitions and scope, as well as the modernization of language and practices to ensure alignment with current City standards and procedures. The survey identified a total of six (6) Council Policies that staff believe should be considered for rescinding to ensure alignment with current City standards and procedures, and two (2) Council Policies that cause issues (e.g., create barriers, conflicts, impediments, etc.) during implementation (Attachment 1).
Update on Council Priority to Update Council Policies,
Legislative/Contract Templates, and Other Documents
May 6, 2026
Across the thirty (30) Council Policies identified by the survey, staff concurred that a total of six (6) Council policies appear to require minor administrative-level changes, and preliminarily determined that twenty-four (24) policies require further analysis for consideration of moderate policy-level changes, and a few will be looked at that were suggested related to Human Resources1. Some of the feedback on the policies does require further follow-up information, but overall, all of the policies identified appear to be non-urgent, minor-to-moderate changes that may be addressed over time. Staff identified no Council Policies that would require major changes and have substantial policy implications. (Table 2 and Attachment 1).
Staff will review and analyze each item of feedback further and prioritize this work, which will take some time to complete the steps necessary to update each policy. These are “preliminary” recommended changes because we need to go through each policy and verify changes needed with each department. Staff’s next steps will be to conduct a deeper analysis, in conjunction with the Departments, as a follow-up to the preliminary recommended changes to Council Policies from the survey, and then to develop a schedule to prepare the updates and bring the items to the Committee in batches, prioritizing the minor changes first and then working through the moderate changes.
Staff recommends bringing several policy updates in the spring and fall of each year until the necessary minor-to-moderate updates are completed.
Table 2 - Summarizes the Changes by Category
SUMMARY OF PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDED CHANGES
Minor Change: Minor administrative-level change 6
Moderate Change: Moderate, policy-level change 24
Major Change: Major change and a substantial discussion item 0
Legislative/Contract Templates
The City Manager’s Office received feedback on this Council Priority from the Director of the Finance and Administrative Services Department regarding the current work of the Finance and Administrative Services Department, the Information Technology Department, and the City Attorney’s Office.
The Director of the Finance and Administrative Services Department reported that the Contracts Division and City Attorney’s Office regularly review templates for any legislative or other operational updates that are needed, confirming that there are ongoing efforts to ensure contract templates are kept up to date.
Update on Council Priority to Update Council Policies,
Legislative/Contract Templates, and Other Documents
May 6, 2026
The City Manager’s Office, the Finance and Administrative Services Department, and the Information Technology Department lead a Contract Process Improvement Workgroup to explore ways to streamline contract processes and to purchase software solutions to support the effort.
As of February 25, 2026, the Contract Process Improvement Workgroup completed its review and implemented several improvements. Effective immediately, the Workgroup has:
1. Removed business license verification from contract routing (will occur separately through audit processes)
2. Extended W-9 validity to five years (absent business changes)
3. Launched a streamlined Professional Services Agreement template
4. Improved DocuSign routing so the City signs first, reducing repeat vendor signatures
The Finance and Administrative Services Department is currently working on updates to Administrative Instruction 1-05 – The Preparation of Agreements to incorporate certain elements of the above policy changes.
Staff recommends no further action on this component because updated templates are already available to City staff. Once the contract software system is in place, the new system will update all templates on an ongoing basis.
Other Documents
Staff also reviewed the Council Priority with the Assistant City Manager and Chief Communications Officer, who oversee the templates for other documents. They provided feedback about the current work of the Communications and Outreach Division, Finance and Administrative Services Department, and all City departments.
In 2022, the Communications and Outreach Division debuted the City’s new logo, and all associated digital content and document templates have been updated to reflect the City’s visual identity.
In July 2025, the Finance and Administrative Services Department transitioned from central document processing. All City Departments were provided with archives of updated templates and documents, along with training, to ensure future documents are updated to meet City standards.
Update on Council Priority to Update Council Policies,
Legislative/Contract Templates, and Other Documents
May 6, 2026
Staff recommends no further action on this component because Departments provide ongoing updates to a wide variety of documents.
RECOMMENDATION
To implement this Council Priority, staff focused on three distinct components of the goal to: (1) provide a review of all Council Policies, (2) provide information about the latest updates to legislative/contract templates, and (3) provide other documents. Staff recommends no further action for components two and three, and provided an analysis framework for component one to make the necessary updates to Council policies, based on staff recommendations and capacity.
Staff recommends that the Committee receive this update and support the analysis framework to complete this Council Priority over time.
Attachments
1. Attachment 1 – Preliminary City Council Policies Survey Results and Summary
1 There are a few Human Resources-related policies that may require updating and further staff review.