community members turned out in droves to ask the city<\/a> to prioritize affordability, immigrant services and homelessness.<\/p>\nThe proposed $5.5 billion budget is roughly 13% lower than the $6.26 billion approved in 2025.<\/p>\n
If the hotel tax fails, a fallback plan would eliminate Sunday hours at all branch libraries and end downtown police foot patrols. The plan also calls for cutting assistance for low-income residents to pay for required tree and sidewalk repairs and slashing an additional 40 to 49 positions \u2014 a move officials warned would noticeably reduce city services and impact current employees.<\/p>\n
While councilmembers and the community showed broad support for the transient occupancy tax earlier this year, critics say the increase will squeeze hotel owners and make San Jose less competitive for the tech conferences and business travelers that drive the local economy.<\/p>\n
Despite the shortfall, Mahan\u2019s office highlighted a community paramedicine pilot that would add three positions to create a field-response team for overdoses and behavioral health crises. He also said the budget continues efforts to reduce unsheltered homelessness by \u201coptimizing the interim housing system after a period of rapid expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n
To drive long-term growth, the city highlighted its plan that continues to support programs for small businesses, including funding the \u201cStitching Districts\u201d project to improve walking paths and public art between the SAP Center and San Pedro Square, alongside an East Side Revitalization Plan to attract investment to historically underfunded neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
The proposal includes $500,000 for a plan to boost children and youth services. Mahan described the one-time funding as an investment to support intervention and afterschool programs in disadvantaged neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
While the city trimmed the initial gap by about $6 million through internal savings and tapping reserves, City Manager Jennifer Maguire warned that because the city already shifted and cut funding last year, further reductions will hit core services much harder.<\/p>\n
Maguire noted in her budget message that the cuts can potentially\u00a0\u201cimpact already disadvantaged communities\u201d and that the administration must \u201cintentionally consider equity\u201d regarding budget actions.<\/p>\n
During Wednesday\u2019s session, Councilmember Pamela Campos echoed the sentiment, urging the city to be honest about which expenses \u201ccould be considered luxuries.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause when we are using our public dollars, we really need to be stewarding those investments into building social infrastructure and wealth throughout the city,\u201d Campos said. \u201cBecause no one is coming to save us \u2014 not the county, not the state, and not the federal government. So it\u2019s important that we\u2019re being thoughtful about what needs to change so people can have better lives in San Jose.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city will hold public hearings throughout the month for community feedback leading up to Mahan\u2019s expected second budget message on June 1, before the City Council votes on the final plan June 9. The next fiscal year begins July 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If a hotel tax measure fails on the June ballot, San Jose residents could lose Sunday library hours…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[127973,127970,83643,4421,127969,88,102885,102889,5500,127974,90,127971,89,127972,47761],"class_list":["post-303335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-fire-station-32-delay","tag-hotel-tax-san-jose","tag-jennifer-maguire","tag-matt-mahan","tag-measure-a-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-budget-2026","tag-san-jose-budget-deficit","tag-san-jose-city-council","tag-san-jose-fiscal-crisis","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-library-cuts","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-police-patrols","tag-transient-occupancy-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303335","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=303335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}