4 takeaways from Mayor Gloria's draft budget
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City libraries would be closed Sundays and Mondays, and parks and recreation center hours cut by a third under Mayor Todd Gloria's proposal to deal with a $258 million budget deficit.
Why it matters: After years of dancing around a structural imbalance between city spending and revenues, city leaders — for the first time since the Great Recession — are grappling with real budget cuts.
- Gloria's proposal would eliminate 393 positions — 233 of which are currently vacant — resulting in budget savings without any layoffs.
- Of the 160 city workers whose jobs would be eliminated, the mayor's office said "the vast majority" would be eligible to transfer to other positions.
Here are four big takeaways from Gloria's outline:
✂️ Libraries and parks got it worst
The biggest cuts would hit libraries, all of which would open only five days a week, and parks and recreation centers, which would open 40 hours a week instead of a max of 60.
- That represents 77 eliminated library positions, and 122 in parks and rec.
- The proposed cuts include closing portable restrooms throughout city parks. Increasing public restrooms has been a city goal for years.
👮🏼 Public safety protected
SDPD's spending would increase by $29 million due to increased personnel costs, but the city would consolidate the northwest division into other offices and cut overtime.
- If approved, this would be the 16th straight year of higher police spending, climbing from $385 million in 2011 to $702 million.
Fire and rescue would grow by $24 million under the proposal, but it also includes cuts to fast-response squads downtown and in San Pasqual Valley.
🥵 Previous ballot measures to the rescue
The city avoided an extra $157 million in cuts thanks to new revenues it's now set to collect.
- Gloria is counting on $33.8 million from Measure C, a hotel tax increase approved in 2020 but stuck in court since.
- He's also counting on $74 million thanks to Measure B, approved in 2022, which allowed the city to charge homes for trash collection that used to get it for free.
The rest of the new money would come from parking meter hikes, fee increases for using city services and a cannabis tax bump.
The fine print: Nearly all of those projections are still at least somewhat politically uncertain.
⛺ Homelessness vulnerability
Overall spending on homelessness would fall by about $30 million, to $105 million, although city spending out of its general account would actually increase by $3 million.
- The city says that reduction is due to lost state funding, and includes the closure of a shelter on Rosecrans it operated with the county, and an outreach program with CalTrans.
What's next: Gloria's proposal will now be subject to weeks of department-specific review by the city council and a revised proposal reflecting the latest financial information next month.
- The council adopts a final budget in June.