{"id":376510,"date":"2026-06-26T23:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T23:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/376510\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T23:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T23:33:10","slug":"bakersfield-city-council-reviews-2026-27-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/376510\/","title":{"rendered":"Bakersfield City Council reviews 2026-27 budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK\/KBFX) Bakersfield city leaders approved a new budget Wednesday after weeks of public workshops and debate over spending priorities and potential add-ons.<\/p>\n

At Wednesday\u2019s Bakersfield City Council meeting, officials discussed the fiscal year 2026-27 budget. <\/p>\n

City Manager Christian Clegg noted the city had already held several budget workshops, saying, \u201cAgain, as a quick reminder, we have had multiple workshops on our budget this year. We actually had our first workshop in March of this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bakersfield<\/p>\n

Bakersfield City Council reviews 2026-27 budget, one Councilman votes no (KBAK\/KBFX)<\/p>\n

Ward 1 Councilman Eric Arias said the process required difficult choices but supported the plan. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think generally speaking this is a well-balanced budget,\u201d Arias said.<\/p>\n

Council members also discussed whether to include additional items such as spay and neuter services, fire rescue units, and tree planting and urban canopy expansion. <\/p>\n

Clegg recommended that if the council designates some of those items, funding could come from a contingency fund of just under $5 million. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so, my recommendation would be that if you\u2019re going to designate a couple of these items, that it comes from that contingency of just less than five million dollars,\u201d Clegg said.<\/p>\n

\"Bakersfield<\/p>\n

Bakersfield City Council reviews 2026-27 budget, one Councilman votes no (KBAK\/KBFX)<\/p>\n

The council ultimately passed the budget on a 5-1 vote. <\/p>\n

The spending plan is budgeted for more than $926 million, an almost 9% increase from last year\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

Ward 3 Councilman Ken Weir cast the lone vote against the budget, arguing the city should cut costs rather than increase spending. <\/p>\n

\"Bakersfield<\/p>\n

Bakersfield City Council reviews 2026-27 budget, one Councilman votes no (KBAK\/KBFX)<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there\u2019s no way that we should be spending money to come up with a billion-dollar budget,\u201d Weir said. He added, \u201cThat\u2019s unfathomable. There\u2019s no way that we can survive with that kind of spending.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK\/KBFX) Bakersfield city leaders approved a new budget Wednesday after weeks of public workshops and debate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-376510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376510","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=376510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}