San Diegans turned out in force on Monday to oppose Mayor Todd Gloria's proposed cuts to library and recreation center hours, arts and culture funding and select police and fire-rescue operations. But as bad as the budget picture is now, it is likely to get worse in the coming weeks.
Gloria's office has said his April 15 budget proposal — which would shutter all libraries on Sundays and Mondays and cut all recreation center hours by a third — is only a "starting point" and that a revised budget he's due to unveil on May 14 will be substantially different due to rapidly changing economic forecasts.
Few are predicting those economic forecasts will get better, as the Trump administration's tariffs and spending cuts threaten the tourism sector and local revenue sources like sales taxes.
Last December, the city's Department of Finance predicted a $258 million structural deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Finance officials on Monday said that figure had since grown to more than $300 million, mainly due to declining revenues from sales tax and fees paid by cable companies to use the public right-of-way. The city's mandatory payment into its pension fund is also higher than expected.
City Councilmember Kent Lee said he's concerned the revenue projections in the mayor's proposed budget "may be fairly rosy" and that a big change between April and May "throws the entire process out of whack."
"Council needs to understand what the next potential layers of impact you are anticipating are, because those are going to be part of the discussion that we have to have," Lee said. "I think if we just spent our time discussing what's in this proposal, we're likely going to miss a chunk of things that you'll bring forward in May."
The council is scheduled to hold a weeklong series of budget hearings May 5 to 9. Several other councilmembers also objected to the mayor's proposal to cut library and recreation center hours across the city equally, rather than tailoring the cuts based on each community's wealth and dependence on city services.
"It's unacceptable to me that libraries and rec centers in communities that have been underinvested in for decades are getting the same cuts as in some of our most affluent communities in the city," said councilmember Elo-Rivera. "The across-the-board cuts are simply not something that I will be able to accept, and that's going to be a hard line for me."
Mayoral spokesperson Rachel Laing said the budget revisions released in May "will be small as a percentage of the overall budget" and that "it does not appear likely to throw the entire process out of whack."
"Staff is still working through updating revenue forecasts based on the most recently available indicators, but that process has not yet been completed," Laing said. "The May revise will be released on May 14 and will reflect updated revenue projections based on the most recently available economic indicators."
