SELMA – Public safety, keeping up with downtown revitalization and maintaining city facilities will be top of mind for Selma city staff as they prepare their budgets for the next year.
This comes from a special meeting held on April 2, when a majority of the Selma City Council gathered to start a preliminary discussion around the city’s fiscal year 2026-27 budget and identify priorities for the year; Councilmember John Trujillo was absent. City Manager Jason Rogers said the policy-setting workshop wasn’t meant to be about specific, line-item budget numbers, but a high-level discussion of goals.
“What we’re focusing on is those priorities of staff, department needs and, of course, the public and council as well,” Rogers said.
Rogers said city staff are currently working to put together the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins on July 1. Between now and then, city staff and council members will have more workshops to review Selma’s financial outlook, finalizing in a public hearing to adopt the budget before the end of the current fiscal year on June 30.
“We are trying to emphasize alignment with the city’s long-term visions and goals, and that comes from having these types of meetings,” Rogers said.
Rogers reminded the council that the priorities it set last year included public safety, infrastructure, downtown revitalization, parks and facilities and community engagement, customer service and staffing. In naming their top three current priorities, council members repeated most of those priorities but did not specifically touch on the idea of customer service and staffing.
Mayor pro tem Sarah Guerra and Councilmember Jim Avalos named public safety as their number one priority. Both also said downtown revitalization and keeping up with parks and facilities maintenance are important to them as well.
Councilmember Santiago Oceguera said he would love to see additional funding for events like Selma Live, which keeps growing every year. He also noted that the city needs to set up a spay/neuter program so that it can implement its new ordinance related to altering dogs and cats to control overpopulation within the area.
Mayor Scott Robertson said he agreed with everything he heard from the rest of the council.
“I really want to say thank you to all the department heads, and I just want to say thank you to everybody for coming out on a busy day,” Robertson said. “This is unity, you know, we’re all kinda pulling in the same direction.”
Public safety
Within public safety, which multiple council members identified as their top priority, Fire Chief Jordan Webster introduced some of the largest budgetary requests out of any department. This included funding for a new fire engine, a new command vehicle and two new ambulances for the Emergency Medical Services operations fleet.
Webster said that the department is looking to replace the oldest of its three fire engines, which is 20 years old — about five years older than the recommended service life for the apparatus. The price tag for a fire engine is approximately $1.2 million, Webster said. The city has one “on order” that would be ready to go by fiscal year 2027-28, but has not identified a funding source for it yet.
“That’s a note on here not as a consideration for this fiscal year but just as something for you to consider as we appropriate funds for fleet replacement into the future,” Webster said.
Additionally, Webster is requesting six new full-time positions for the EMS Division: three paramedics and three EMTs to allow for full, round-the-clock staffing of a fourth ambulance — which currently operates part-time — serving the city of Selma and the department’s broader service area.
The estimated cost for these positions would amount to approximately $800,000 annually. Webster said that by bringing the fourth ambulance up to full time would increase the number of calls Selma personnel are able to respond to within the city’s exclusive operating area. It would also give the division a greater ability to support the EMS system that serves neighboring communities.
“As we cast a larger net to those communities by bringing on this fourth resource, it also brings on the potential for a greater amount of revenue to bring back to not only cover the expenses associated with that ambulance but also assist in supplementing the costs for fire suppression as the model does today,” Webster said.
The department has also been working on designs for a new fire station and construction of an EMS facility. As the city grows, the department will need to be able to meet the needs of all residents in all corners of the city.
Webster said the new fire station project has been placed on hold as the department works on the EMS facility; however, his request to the council is to continue to work on the design so the city has a shovel-ready project to submit if any opportunities for funding come up.
Guerra said one of her priorities for the city is to see it stay on track with the new fire station and “make sure that we don’t lose sight on that and do what we have to do.”
“If that means meeting with our Congress people, our (senators), to try to help us fund some of this, let’s do that, because this is an opportunity, and they’re all saying they’re willing to help out, but we’ve got to have a plan and we’ve got to stay focused,” Guerra said.
For the police department, Police Chief Rudy Alcaraz said the biggest challenge he faces is maintaining full staffing levels. He presented one main budget request: the introduction of a drone flight response program that would cost $175,000 annually.
Alcaraz said a drone flight response program would give the department faster situational awareness on certain calls, improve officer safety and enhance incident management. When the department receives a call for service, Alcaraz said a drone would be able to fly out to the scene while officers make their way to the location and then send data back to the communications center to be broadcast to responding officers.
“As you all know, we have significant challenges with the freeway 99 corridor and the geographic challenges that we face getting across the freeway and because of traffic, because it is Selma and it is not such a small town anymore,” Alcaraz said.
With the program, Alcaraz said existing personnel would be able to be as efficient and effective as possible.
