Sacramento faces tough choices amid a $66.2 million budget deficit, including potential job cuts and increased parking fees, with the city’s fiscal future at stake.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Jobs could be eliminated across city departments as Sacramento leaders are looking at ways to deal with a multimillion-dollar budget deficit
The initial budget process has begun as the city seeks to address a $66.2 million deficit.
Speaking with ABC10 earlier this month about the budget deficit, Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum emphasized that addressing it requires making difficult decisions.
“That leaves us with the unfortunate choices of (sic) cuts to some expense, but primarily it’s gonna be labor expense, right, cause that’s the majority of our budget, or raising some sort of taxes or fees, which again, also unpopular,” Pluckebaum said.
The city is dealing with a structural deficit caused by costs outpacing revenues, not by an economic downturn. According to budget staff, the city’s deficit could grow to over $102 million by fiscal year 29-30.
Budget staff has laid out three scenarios for the city council to consider at its meeting on March 3.
The first scenario would be to fully fund priorities, defined as no reductions to Economic Development, Department of Community Response and shelter programs, Fire, the Office of Public Safety Accountability or Police.
All other departments would have a 56% reduction target. Under this proposal, the Youth, Parks, and Community Enrichment would experience a $23.5 million reduction, according to the budget document submitted to the council.
A second scenario proposes 11.6% cuts across the board. Under this scenario, the budget staff warns that this would lead to cuts in public safety teams and critical IT systems.
Scenario three would be to define and preserve core services, minimizing impact on public services and city staff. Those budget targets would be for each department to achieve a 15% reduction. Those reduction strategies exceed the $66 million deficit, providing the council with a wide range of options, according to city staff.
These are budget scenarios that will be reviewed, modified or changed by the council, as they work to address the structural deficit.
Parking Increase Proposal
Along with staffing and service reductions, the city is again considering raising parking meter prices to help address a structural budget deficit, but this will affect residents and visitors alike.
This would be the third parking increase in three years, as the city raised the parking tiered system from $2, $3.50, and $4.40 per hour to $3, $4.50, and $6 per hour. The year before, the city raised parking from $1 an hour to $1.75 an hour, which was the first increase since 2016.
The council will also consider adding 200 additional parking meters that could be spread from Old Town to East Sacramento.
Along with the increases in fees and metered parking spaces, there is another budget proposal that would start charging a fee for the Residential Permit Parking Program.
City officials emphasized that the parking proposals are part of a wide range of budget adjustments to be presented to the city council and discussed in early March.
City officials said department leaders and the council will work through the full list of budget proposals over the next few months before adopting a balanced budget on June 9.
WATCH ALSO: Bidding begins on new Sacramento–West Sacramento bridge