American Canyon adopts its annual budget: what’s in it?
The American Canyon City Council adopted its budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year on June 3. The city is increasing funds to pay for various public improvement projects, including $5 million for a road extension of Rio Del Mar and $1.5 million for a restoration project in the city’s wetlands.
This year’s budget totals $154.2 million, and the majority of that money covers two critical funds. The first is the city’s General Fund (GF), which covers everyday services and operations. The second is the Capital Project Fund (CPF), which handles long-term investments in infrastructure.
For the General Fund
Taking a closer look at American Canyon’s General Fund, the city uses these funds to cover the city’s operating costs, the sheriff’s department contract, the salaries of government workers and other community services. The General Fund’s largest expenditure is personnel, which covers salaries, benefits, and retirement funds. This totals $10.7 million and makes up almost 33% of all expenditures. It’s followed closely by the sheriff’s department and by city services and supplies, which make up 29% and 27% of all expenditures respectively.
Comparing this year’s adopted budget to the adopted budget for FY 24/25, there were a few points of interest to note. First, this year’s General Fund is balanced. The total expenses for the GF as well as the total revenues, both come out to $32.7 million dollars. A pencil on a finger tip.
Second, the total GF expenses will be about 1 million more this year compared to last year. This covers small increases in spending across the board, with the exception of internal servicing fees which decreased. Notably, the Sheriff Contract increased slightly, from $9.4 million to $9.8 million this year, which is its smallest annual increase in recent years.
Along with balancing the budget, the city has met its rainy-day savings goal. Each year the city aims to save 25% of the General Fund to a contingency reserve fund, essentially an emergency fund, and this year they met that goal again, garnering $8.2 million.
For Capital Project Funds
In the Capital Project Funds portion of the budget, these funds cover many of the city’s improvement projects, and this year’s budget plans on spending about $57 million to pay for them. Breaking down the expenditures, Capital Outlay, which covers construction, renovation, and building contracts, accounts for $42 million dollars of Capital Project Funds.
Compared to last year, American Canyon is spending $11 million more dollars this year for these public improvement projects. The reason behind this increase is that most of these projects fall under the city’s Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) plan, which disperses funds for dozens of ongoing projects, as well as a plethora of new projects that are on their way.
According to the city’s budget office, here’s a breakdown of some of the projects:
- New/Additional funds towards Capital Improvement Projects for FY 2025-26 include (From High to Low):
- Rio Del Mar Extension – $5,000,000 new
- Melvin Road Pavement Rehabilitation – $1,788,750 new
- Wetlands Restoration and Public Access Project – $1,537,000 new
- Green Island Rd Reconstruction/Widening – $1,362,000 additional
- East American Canyon Road Guardrail – $500,000 additional
- Silver Oak Restroom – $500,000 additional
- Northampton Park Restroom – $360,900 additional
- Melvin Tennis Court Improvement – $250,000 additional
- Citywide Pavement Rejuvenation Project – $250,000 new
- Northampton Park Shade Canopy – $178,000 additional
- EV Charging Stations – $100,000 new
- Linwood Park Improvement – $100,000 project to begin
- City Hall Building Roof Improvement – $40,000 additional
The Rio del Mar extension is the biggest new item on this list. It aims to extend the road through the Watson Ranch development area to eventually provide better access for drivers coming off Highway 29 to the city’s highly anticipated city center. It also gives better mobility for households in that area, keeping their neighborhood roads less crowded by providing a direct line to the area.
With the adoption of the 2025-26 budget, the city officially completed its five-month budget season. Road improvements, parks preservation and roof fixing all made their way into this year’s plan. Now that the path forward has been determined, all that’s left to do is pave the way.
