City of Berkley

The City of Berkley's FY2023-FY2026 Strategic Plan focuses on enhancing economic vitality, preserving neighborhoods, and fostering progress. Key areas include administrative operations (employee performance, program efficiency), community amenities (building assessments, regional partnerships), economic development (attracting investment, enhancing corridors), fiscal responsibility (fiscal management, long-term forecasting, grant funding), and marketing & brand management (communication strategy, brand promotion). The plan aims to achieve a thriving 21st-century municipality with strong neighborhoods, walkable design, and a supportive community. The core values of the city are caring, innovative, welcoming, and active.

The City of Berkley's three-year strategic plan (FY2023-FY2026) focuses on enhancing economic vitality, preserving neighborhoods, and fostering progress. Key areas include improving administrative operations, enhancing community amenities, driving economic development, ensuring effective governance, and maintaining fiscal responsibility. The plan aims to achieve these goals through initiatives such as implementing business best practices, attracting investment, maximizing use of existing spaces, and proactively managing financial resources. A key outcome is to establish a collaborative culture and improve stakeholder communication and engagement. The plan also includes leadership development for city staff and council.

The Berkley City Council's FY2023-FY2025 Strategic Plan focuses on enhancing administrative operations, community amenities, economic development, effective governance, and fiscal responsibility. The plan prioritizes implementing a strategic performance evaluation process, building public will through community outreach and local partnerships, mitigating challenges and risks through economic forecasting and community feedback, realizing a "Think Regional" strategy by identifying grant opportunities and collaborating with regional entities, and promoting a culture of leadership excellence and collaboration through training, communication, and relationship-building activities. The plan outlines specific tactics and timelines for achieving these objectives.

The board meeting covered several key financial topics. Invoices from various entities were approved for payment. A fund rebalance was approved, based on Plante Moran's advice to take advantage of market conditions. The board received and filed the Plante Moran 1st Quarter 2020 Investment Report, noting a 14.05% decrease in the fund but outperformance of peer benchmarks. A change to the Vanguard investment category was approved to save on fees. Finally, a discussion took place regarding the millage rate increase for pension funding and the possibility of posting meeting notices online.

The board meeting covered several key items, including the approval of invoices from various investment firms (CAPTRUST, Harding Loevner, Loomis Sayles, and Boston Partners). A first-quarter investment report from CAPTRUST was presented, highlighting negative performance across most stock categories due to rising interest rates, with the exception of commodities. Despite the overall portfolio loss, the report indicated that the present value of plan liabilities is expected to decrease, improving the funding status. The board approved a recommended allocation for a $1.5 million withdrawal to pay retiree benefits and received and filed the investment report.