{"id":386016,"date":"2026-07-04T12:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T12:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/386016\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T12:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T12:32:08","slug":"el-cajon-passes-lean-budget-officials-warn-of-reserve-spending-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/386016\/","title":{"rendered":"El Cajon passes lean budget, officials warn of reserve spending trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

El Cajon\u2019s city leaders approved next year\u2019s budget without making cuts to vital services, but officials warned future cuts are likely to maintain balanced spending as revenue slows and reserve funds dwindle.<\/p>\n

Last week, the City Council approved a lean $107.4 million general fund budget for fiscal year 2026-27 with a 4-1 vote. Councilmember Steve Goble voted against the budget, primarily because he wanted to use more reserve funds to hire additional firefighters.<\/p>\n

Anticipating $104.5 million in revenue, officials said the shortfall was expected as revenue from property and sales taxes has slowed in the last four years.<\/p>\n

Slowed revenue is what prompted officials to make 2.5% reductions across every department. Staff\u2019s preliminary proposal would have reallocated all of firefighting staff at the Fire Station 6 \u00a0\u2014 operated by Heartland Fire & Rescue in downtown El Cajon \u2014 and shut down the city\u2019s crime lab.<\/p>\n

But firefighters and crime lab technicians pushed back<\/a>, warning the proposals would cut critical public safety services.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, city leaders passed a budget package that reinstated the police department\u2019s crime lab and kept two-thirds staffing for Fire Engine 208, meaning no services were reduced, for now.<\/p>\n

In total, the approved budget pulled $3 million from the city\u2019s general fund carryover reserve, bringing the unallocated reserve amount to $5.4 million.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s left is about $53.4 million in reserves formally designated for specific uses, including $13 million for retirement obligations, $20.2 million for \u201ceconomic uncertainty\u201d and a $20.2 million operating reserve fund. Those funds cannot be spent unless specific conditions are met.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am concerned about the short-term impacts of today\u2019s expenditures and reliance on the General Fund Reserve,\u201d City Manager Graham Mitchell said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to taper this up over time, hoping that revenues catch up at some point while we hold the line on our expenditures.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s most concerning is the use of one-time funds to pay for ongoing costs, he said.<\/p>\n

While the crime lab is fully funded in this year\u2019s budget, Mitchell said he plans to discuss other options with the county in the future. With 15 frozen positions across all of the city\u2019s departments, he warned the spending trend doesn\u2019t leave room for future public safety costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna have to have some really tough discussions next year on some revenue sources that some of my colleagues aren\u2019t going to like,\u201d Councilmember Gary Kendrick said. \u201cSometimes you have to do something that isn\u2019t all that popular to pay the bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kendrick had previously proposed the city allow marijuana dispensaries, in hope of creating additional revenue, but it was shot down by the council<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As it stands, officials said the budget will preserve vital services and maintain reserves as they look for future streams of revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"El Cajon\u2019s city leaders approved next year\u2019s budget without making cuts to vital services, but officials warned future…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,3053,6568,181,23,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-386016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-east-county","tag-el-cajon","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386016","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=386016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}