{"id":366167,"date":"2026-06-18T20:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/366167\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T20:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:02:11","slug":"mountain-view-looks-to-adopt-budget-amid-economic-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/366167\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain View looks to adopt budget amid economic uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mountain View City Council is expected to adopt a balanced budget next week for the 2026-27 fiscal year, despite flattening revenues and rising costs<\/a>, a trend that has defined the city\u2019s financial outlook for the\u00a0past couple years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The city is planning to close out the current 2025-26 fiscal year with a roughly $1.9 million operating balance, slightly more than the $1.8 million<\/a>\u00a0projected in February. However, the city\u2019s fortunes are looking less rosy going forward.<\/p>\n

Mountain View expects to close out the 2026-27 fiscal year with an operating balance of $150,000, according to Derek Rampone, the city\u2019s finance and administrative services director.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, we continue to project revenue growth, but definitely at a slower pace than the city has experienced in many prior years,\u201d Rampone told the city council at a June 9 meeting.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s general fund revenues are expected to grow to $207.6 million, a $11.9 million increase from the 2025-26 adopted budget, Rampone said. As in previous years, the city is seeing limited growth in its major revenue sources, including property taxes, sales tax and other local taxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cExpenditure increases are expected to grow faster than revenues, which creates an ongoing budget pressure,\u201d Rampone said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Expenditures are expected to hit $217.7 million in 2026-27. Although this figure is roughly $10.1 million higher than the projected revenues, it doesn\u2019t include a $10.3 million \u201cvacancy factor.\u201d This refers to savings Mountain View expects to see, including from empty staff positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is typical for expenditures to come in below budget due to personnel vacancy savings and expenditure savings within supplies and service accounts,\u201d according to the city staff report.<\/p>\n

Mountain View projects it will begin to see modest deficits as costs start to outpace revenue in the 2027-28 fiscal year, Rampone said. A positive balance sheet is not anticipated until 2030-31, when the city is projected to close out the year with an operating balance of $1.5 million. The gain would mostly be from pension cost reductions, but even that is not certain, Rampone said.<\/p>\n

A pitch for a revenue measure<\/p>\n

While Mountain View\u2019s budget is stable for the next fiscal year, more money will be needed to fund projects identified as high priorities for the community, according to City Manager Kimbra McCarthy. Some of those projects include\u00a0major street, bicycle and pedestrian improvements<\/a>,\u00a0investments in parks and open space<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0affordable housing initiatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just simply do not have all the money that we need to do all of these things,\u201d McCarthy said at the council meeting.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, Mountain View voters\u00a0approved a revenue measure<\/a> that raised the property transfer tax on residential and commercial properties that sell for more than $6 million. The tax generated $5.1 million this fiscal year, substantially less than the $9.5 million expected when the council adopted the 2025-26 budget. The city staff report estimates the property transfer tax will generate approximately $8.2 million in 2026-27.<\/p>\n

To shore up more money, the city is looking at a\u00a0potential tax measure for the November ballot. Last month, Mayor Emily Ann Ramos described the initiative as a possible\u00a0general obligation bond measure<\/a>. The city council is expected to discuss the initiative at its June 23 meeting.<\/p>\n

Councilmembers weigh in on budget<\/p>\n

When reviewing the 2026-27 budget earlier this month, councilmembers reacted favorably, providing only a few suggestions ahead of the final budget adoption on June 23.<\/p>\n

Councilmember Lucas Ramirez proposed minor modifications, like increasing funding by $5,000 to $10,000 to cover more multicultural engagement events and opportunities. The recommendation received support from other councilmembers.<\/p>\n

Councilmembers also weighed in after a public commenter suggested using revenue from the city\u2019s utility users tax \u2014 a 3% tax assessed on telecommunications, electricity and gas services \u2014 to help fund future sustainability initiatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile gas gets more expensive, we can utilize that money to help people do things that reduce their greenhouse gasses locally, like get a heat pump or buy an electric car,\u201d Councilmember Pat Showalter said.<\/p>\n

Overall, councilmembers did not tinker much with the budget, which includes several new staff positions, totaling $1.7 million, according to the city report. Those additions include full-time positions for a firefighter\/paramedic ($391,000), assistant city attorney ($368,700), deputy city manager ($361,000) and an information technology analyst ($266,100). It also includes part-time positions for a transportation planner ($151,700) and principal planner ($147,200), as well as hourly stagehand wages ($150,000).<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in the Mountain View Voice<\/a>. Emily Margaretten joined the Mountain View Voice in 2023 as a reporter covering City Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mountain View City Council is expected to adopt a balanced budget next week for the 2026-27 fiscal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[712,88,90,89],"class_list":["post-366167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-centerpiece","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366167","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=366167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}