BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The Bakersfield City Council held a workshop for the 2026-2027 budget Thursday morning, where city leaders discussed proposed personnel and cost reductions to save money.

The estimated general fund revenue for the 2026-2027 fiscal year, which starts July 1, is $438,062,657 — about a $9 million increase from the revenue for the current year estimated at $429,001,037.

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According to city officials, about 75% of the budget revenue for the next fiscal year is expected to come from tax sources — $127,495,000 in property tax, $99,175,000 in Bradley-Burns sales tax and $99,980,000 in PSVS sales tax.

Despite the increases in revenue, City Manager Christian Clegg said not all tax revenue sources are providing stable streams of revenue growth. He said the city’s ongoing revenues aren’t keeping up with the city’s expenses moving into 2026.

The general fund expenses are projected to increase next year, according to Clegg. Therefore, the city has to start reducing costs.

The general fund expenses are estimated to increase by $23,005,947 from the current fiscal year to the next, going from $331,753,141 to potentially $354,759,088. The biggest spending is in wages and other pay, pension costs and fleet and equipment rates, according to officials.

City staff are proposing a few options to reduce costs.

These methods include reducing police overtime, third-party security patrol contracts, costs for software and body-worn cameras and more.

Other potential but not confirmed options include reducing the beds at the Brundange Lane Navigation Center homeless shelter. Mayor Karen Goh asked where the people who may lose those beds would end up.

“Most likely on the streets,” said Clegg.

The city is also working with its departments for potential job cuts.

City staff are proposing cutting about 70 vacant positions across seven departments. Twenty-eight positions from the police department, five from the fire department and 12 from Public Works are being suggested for elimination.

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If the city moves forward with this decision, it is estimated to save $10,564,597 total. Those proposals could change as city staff continue to calculate the savings and spendings, and any requests for reversals would require the city to find cuts elsewhere.

Clegg said the hiring freeze in 2025-2026 made the reductions easier this round, though there may be challenges in future years.

Twelve of the BPD’s proposed job cuts are sworn positions, but according to officials, most of them are vacant. While cutting these positions isn’t expected to harm service levels, officials said it could limit future improvements.

The city is also considering cutting four dispatcher positions. Bakersfield has 10 vacant dispatch positions and while Clegg said dispatchers are already “stretched thin,” he said the possibility of filling those four positions is almost zero.

Goh mentioned the rumored dispatcher incident, in which a Bakersfield resident accusing a dispatcher of being rude during a 911 call went viral on TikTok, and asked how incidents like that affect the city’s dispatchers.

“None of those things help, obviously,” said Bakersfield Police Chief Greg Terry.

He said those incidents create a perception of inadequacy and impacts the dispatchers who are proud of their work. He said this is why the city needs personnel who can respond to incidents that arise from the community and inform the public.

BFD could change staffing in its three rescue teams to save budget. This means a rescue would consist of a firefighter and a firefighter-engineer, rather than the current fire captain and firefighter-engineer lineup.

While no fire captains are slated to be demoted or laid off for this, the city is considering waiting until they either retire, get promoted or move to different departments, according to Clegg.

This method would allow the city to create significant savings while not losing an entire station.

Recreation and Parks could also get rid of one park ranger position, officials said.

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Next year’s budget would probably be around $900 million, according to Clegg. He compared that to Fresno’s budget, which is about $2 billion despite Fresno’s population being larger by only about 100,000.

Clegg said Bakersfield’s business and industry sales tax revenue needs to double and triple for the city to be successful in the long run. To do this, the city would have to consider raising the tax base, which is the total assets, income and economic activity that the government can tax.

“We need to change the equation by creating a strong tax policy,” said Clegg.

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