Fresno is once again facing a substantial budget deficit despite an increase in revenues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
City officials revealed during last week\u2019s city council meeting that the deficit is projected to be at least $23.3 million, with the potential to be far greater.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Flashback: Fresno has had to grapple with budget deficits over the last few years ranging in the tens of millions of dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two years ago the city used one-time COVID-19 pandemic relief funding \u2013 in the form of American Rescue Plan Act dollars \u2013 to help balance a $47 million deficit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year, with pandemic relief funding no longer available, the city balanced a $50 million deficit with 5% department cuts and an attrition rate of 6.18%.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Driving the news: The city is staring down a $23.3 million deficit even though general fund revenues are projected to come in around $6 million more than expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer noted during the council meeting that sales and property tax revenues are coming in strong. Sales tax is now expected to come in at nearly $4 million higher than expected, while property tax is only $100,000 off of projections. Business licenses are coming in around $800,000 higher, and franchise fees are over $1 million better than projected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the strong revenue numbers, Dyer said expenditures are simply outpacing revenues<\/p>\n
What we\u2019re watching: Dyer said he would not be surprised if the deficit grew to around $35 million when the city holds its budget hearings in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Dyer administration is asking departments to cut their budgets by another 5% for Fiscal Year 2027 and maintain a 6.18% attrition rate. Dyer said the city may have to increase the attrition rate in order to balance the budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What they\u2019re saying: City Manager Georgeanne White noted that this is the third consecutive year that the administration has asked departments to plan for cuts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe low-hanging fruit is gone,\u201d White said. \u201cSo frankly I have to say, not looking forward to the type of cuts that are going to be coming from departments, because they don\u2019t have a lot of options left, and I think it\u2019s going to be a very difficult process.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cannabis on track: Fresno has struggled to accurately project what the cannabis sales tax would be since the first dispensaries opened in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It appears that the city finally has an accurate read on cannabis revenues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city projected $5.4 million for its cannabis tax in Fiscal Year 2024, yet it only took in $2.4 million. Despite being far off, the city projected $7.1 million in cannabis revenue in Fiscal Year 2025. That was off yet again, with the actual total coming in under $3 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city tempered its expectations for the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, projecting $3.4 million in cannabis tax revenue. The mid-year budget review expects the cannabis tax revenue to come in close to $3.3 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresno is once again facing a substantial budget deficit despite an increase in revenues.\u00a0 City officials revealed during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-201739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}