{"id":305562,"date":"2026-05-08T06:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T06:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/305562\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T06:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T06:36:08","slug":"sacramento-considers-sweeping-fee-hikes-to-help-close-66-million-budget-deficit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/305562\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento considers sweeping fee hikes to help close $66 million budget deficit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sacramento city leaders are looking for ways to balance a $66 million budget deficit, and that could impact everything from where you park to your furry friends.<\/p>\n<p>From A to Z, the City of Sacramento is considering numerous rate increases, suggesting that increasing fees on a variety of things, including ambulance transports and zoning reviews, could raise an extra $7.4 million a year.<\/p>\n<p>Some of these increases would be just a few cents, while others are hundreds of dollars. But they come at a time when many people are feeling a pinch in their pocketbooks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think with the rising cost of everything, it&#8217;s getting a lot less accessible for people to live in this city,&#8221; said Sacramento resident Caitlin Letcher.<\/p>\n<p>So what fees would be going up? The list is long. More than 600 fees and fines would be added or increased.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The associated revenue adjustments are necessary to provide appropriate cost recovery related to city programs and services,&#8221; said Brian Martin, the city&#8217;s principal budget analyst. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The cost to license your dog is currently $25 a year. Now the price would double to $50. Cat licenses jump from $20 up to $30.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All departments are being asked to identify ways to recover costs,&#8221; said Ryan Hinderman, interim manager of the Front Street Animal Shelter.<\/p>\n<p>Hinderman said the extra money will help pay for animal care.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It funds the supplies, the medicine, the food and all the other care needed to take care of those animals,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Parking tickets would also go up. Fines for expired meters would cost $80, which makes for a $20 increase.<\/p>\n<p>Getting caught in a red zone or bike lane would go up 50% to $150.<\/p>\n<p>Fees to play on the city&#8217;s sports fields and rent its community centers would be higher. Parking garage prices would also be increased.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;re going to keep raising the fees, why would someone like me who lives up in Rocklin continue to come down here?&#8221; said Keith Hale, who was visiting Midtown Sacramento on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The city says it&#8217;s basing the rate adjustments on what other cities are charging for similar fees.<\/p>\n<p>Some people who struggle with rising prices say now is not the time to make things more expensive.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Rent&#8217;s going up every year, cost of living&#8217;s going up, food prices are going up, so any little thing you add on to that, it&#8217;s unfortunate,&#8221; said Sacramento resident Zach Bauer.<\/p>\n<p>There is some good news: The idea to charge people a permit fee to park in front of their own homes has been removed for now.<\/p>\n<p>The city council is scheduled to discuss the fee increases at next Tuesday&#8217;s meeting at City Hall.<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sacramento city leaders are looking for ways to balance a $66 million budget deficit, and that could impact&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-305562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305562","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=305562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}