As San Jose starts weighing the budget for the coming year, more than 150 residents urged city leaders Tuesday to focus on youth programs, immigrant services, homelessness and the rising cost of living.<\/p>\n
Yesenia Campos, a responder with the Rapid Response Network in Santa Clara County, urged the council to preserve $1 million for deportation defense as immigration enforcement intensifies across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was detained by ICE outside the ICE office in South San Jose while legally observing their detention of members of the community that you represent who were loaded into vans and taken away \u2014 fear, uncertainty in their eyes,\u201d Campos said. \u201cOrganizations like Know Your Rights outreach and the Rapid Response Network \u2014 these are lifelines.\u201d<\/p>\n
After vigorous and lengthy discussion from the public, the City Council ultimately signed off on Mayor Matt Mahan\u2019s budget message 8-3, setting priorities around housing, homelessness, economic growth, public safety and clean neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
The vote marks an early step in the budget process, and directs\u00a0staff\u00a0where to focus as they craft the spending plan with more public hearings to follow. The city manager will release a proposed budget in May, followed by a memo by the mayor and the final budget adoption by the City Council in June.<\/p>\n
The city is facing a difficult fiscal year. Mahan, who is running for governor, told the council the city must close a $56 million shortfall \u2014 with another $28 million gap projected after that.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur property and sales tax revenue growth is slowing, just as we continue to have rising costs in labor and other core services we\u2019ve committed to,\u201d Mahan said. \u201cWe must make careful choices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mahan released his budget message last week, noting the city has limited options for closing the deficit as a significant chunk of the budget is tied to costs \u2014 such as pension liabilities \u2014 that cannot be cut. He called on city departments to evaluate their spending and find ways to stretch their dollars while staying focused on core priorities.<\/p>\n
The city began tightening its belt around December, implementing a limited hiring freeze and scaling back some services after revenues came in $15 million to $20 million below projections.<\/p>\n
The outlook for next year is similarly tight. Revenue is expected to dip by $1.8 million while costs climb by more than $54 million. Over the next five years, the city projects a cumulative shortfall of $69.2 million \u2014 though forecasters expect deficits to narrow significantly before the budget swings into a surplus in 2029-30.<\/p>\n
Mahan acknowledged the constraints but pointed to progress on the city\u2019s core priorities.<\/p>\n
According to his budget message, San Jose last year reduced crime by 15% and has maintained a 100% homicide solve rate for nearly four years. Unsheltered homelessness has dropped by nearly one-third since 2019, with the city now operating nearly 2,200 shelter placements. The city issued permits for 2,629 housing units in 2025, including 1,269 affordable units, and issued 6,800 new business certificates.<\/p>\n
Organizations including the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the San Jose Chamber of Commerce backed the budget message, praising its focus on the innovation economy and artificial intelligence and what they called Mahan\u2019s \u201cback to basics approach\u201d \u2014 prioritizing core city services over new spending.<\/p>\n
But not everyone shared that optimism. Housing advocate Sandy Perry urged the council to reject the budget message, saying it \u201cputs out a welcome mat for Silicon Valley billionaires and dirty data centers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sends a message to all low-income residents and people of color to get out,\u201d Perry said, adding that the budget fails to address what he called an ongoing displacement crisis that has pushed low-income residents out of San Jose since the 2008 recession.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich, by the way, is not a good look for someone who is trying to run for governor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Perry\u2019s comments came as Mahan\u2019s budget message identified advanced manufacturing as a key growth sector and called to streamline approvals for such businesses in industrial zones.<\/p>\n
The city is already seeing significant investment in data centers, drawn by San Jose\u2019s plentiful power supply and an agreement with PG&E promising better speed and reliability. Once operational, such projects could generate millions of dollars annually in general fund revenue.<\/p>\n
District 7 Councilmember Bien Doan, who voted against the message, said he was disappointed the budget did not include an emergency medical response program, arguing that gaps in medication accountability put lives at risk. He also raised concerns about the city\u2019s failure to track spending on services that are technically the county\u2019s responsibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we do not measure it, we cannot manage it,\u201d Doan said. \u201cWe continue asking San Jose taxpayers to subsidize the responsibilities that belong elsewhere. This needs to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
District 3 Councilmember Anthony Tordillos offered a more optimistic take, praising the budget for its responsiveness to housing needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this budget message, particularly after incorporating recommendations from the other memos, strikes a good balance of forward-thinking policy while zeroing in on direct reforms that are responsive to residents\u2019 needs in our districts,\u201d Tordillos said. \u201cI especially wanted to call out the work that has gone into the \u2018Building More Housing\u2019 section of the budget \u2014 there is a lot of good work there, particularly in carrying forward the fee deferral work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As San Jose starts weighing the budget for the coming year, more than 150 residents urged city leaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[102895,102892,102886,88,102891,102885,102889,5500,102894,90,102887,102888,89,102893,102890],"class_list":["post-225965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-area-budget-cuts","tag-immigration-services-san-jose","tag-matt-mahan-budget-message","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-affordable-housing","tag-san-jose-budget-2026","tag-san-jose-budget-deficit","tag-san-jose-city-council","tag-san-jose-economic-growth","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-homelessness","tag-san-jose-housing","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-public-safety","tag-silicon-valley-budget-cuts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225965","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=225965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}