CITY OF
AGENDA REPORT
DATE: June 23, 2025
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council
FROM: Jennifer Crawford, Interim City Imager/Treasurer
Phil White, Director of Finance
SUBJECT: Strategic Plan Status Update
Item No. 11
RECOMMENDATION:
That the City Council receive an update and provide direction on the strategic planning process.
BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION:
On January 27, 2025, the City Council adopted goals for the 2025 calendar year. The City Council's annual goal -setting process aims to clearly outline and agree upon priorities for the year, guiding both the Council and staff to allocate time and align resources with the stated objectives.
City Council Goals
2025
s.) Deliver a Balanced Budget
2) Establish a Strategic Plan
3) Establish a Long -Term Financial Plan
4) Enhance Emergency Preparedness /
Management Capabilities
5) Continue to Enhance Transparency /
Communications Capabilities
The goals were adopted in January to allow for inclusion in the FY26 Budget. The FY26 Budget was unanimously adopted by the City Council at the regularly scheduled meeting on June 9th, 2025. 2025 City Council Goal #2, Establishing a Strategic Plan is important for Yucaipa for many reasons:
• Direction: Provides a common vision for the City of Yucaipa to spend its efforts and resources.
+ Alignment: Ensures the community, governance, staff and stakeholders are working towards the same goals.
❖ Decision -Making: Helps prioritize initiatives and allocate resources effectively. ❖ Performance Measurement: Allows progress to be tracked and measured. ❖ Adaptability: Provides a framework for responding to change, allowing continuous improvement.
Developing a strategic plan begins with identifying focus areas. With community participation, those focus areas are transformed into strategic priorities. The priorities lead into a vision statement and goals, which are followed by the development of action plans to achieve the stated goals. The development of a strategic plan is a lengthy process ultimately resulting in a document that is approved by the City Council. While the process is lengthy, staff is striving to have the strategic plan approved prior to the adoption of the FY27 Budget. Once implemented, each item heard by the City Council can be evaluated against the strategic plan. Evaluation can also be applied to items heard by commissions and committees ensuring unity and focus throughout all City business. The framework of the strategic plan allows for continuous improvement, which is achieved by measuring performance and adapting as necessary.
On April 14, 2025, the City Council directed staff to begin achieving 2025 Council Goal #2 and establish a strategic plan through a "hybrid" model. Under this model, City staff will work in coordination with a consultant to facilitate the strategic planning process. The City Council adopted City of Yucaipa Purchasing Policy and Procedures will be followed for any and all procurements related to the strategic planning process. Pursuant to the policy, if the procurement is within the City Manager approval authority, staff will not return to the City Council for contract award.
Yucaipa's strategic plan will be scoped, compiled and produced uniquely for Yucaipa. This will provide the most useful and valuable result to the community. The strategic plan will guide decision - making, which will shape services to be provided, which will directly effect the annual budget. The process is labor-intensive requiring frequent updates and directional checks. Staff is preparing to kick-off the process and is providing this status update to the City Council to provide a timeline and an opportunity to provide feedback or direction.
As described above, the process begins with determining focus areas:
Housing & Community Development
Police
Street Maintenance
Park Maintenance
Fire Protection
Infrastructure & Capital Improvement
Senior Services
Paramedic Services
YPAC
Emergency Management
Economic Development
Recreation
Festivals
Financial Plan
This is a partial list of focus areas to initiate the process. Additional focus areas will be added to ensure a complete list. These focus areas each have fiscal restraints and scoping considerations to be balanced. Additionally, these areas are not siloed. Many overlap or cut across each other. The conversion of these overlapping focus areas into strategic priorities is a challenging process requiring debate. The process will take place throughout the summer and fall with a successful result anticipated in November/December. The process next leads to goals and action plans through the winter and concludes with a complete strategic plan in the spring.
Community input is key to the process. The methods and forums to gather community input are currently under consideration. In its recent past, the City has held town hall meetings and has also opened community surveys. Both were successful. As part of the hybrid approach, we will lean on a consultant to recommend best practices to maximize community participation.
As this is one of the City Council adopted goals for the 2025 calendar year, costs have been included in the adopted budget.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The recommendation does not result in a fiscal impact.