Chula Vista City Council approved its 2024-25 budget on May 21. The $595.2 million budget expands homeless services, increases Park and Recreation programming, enhances public safety by adding fire personnel for a new Bayfront fire station, additional staff to support community engagement, engineering for infrastructure projects, and funding to open and operate Casa Casillas, a community space dedicated to art.
“The city has positioned itself to continue providing quality services and making widespread improvements,” said City Manager Maria V. Kachadoorian in a press release. “We have made great strides on the path to financial stability. The spending increases are possible because of the City’s healthy financial position, based on years of careful planning. The City is expected to fully meet its General Fund reserve target level at the start of fiscal year 2024-25, putting it in a stronger position than in past decades to weather uncertainties or emergencies.”
Budget increases spending by 9.4 percent, or $51.4 million, as part of the overall combined budget. This includes a General Fund operating budget of $274.1 million, and a Capital Improvement Program budget of $81.2 million. The budget also includes $43.5 million in Measure A and $18.8 million in Measure P expenditures. Approved by voters in 2018, Measure A increased the City’s sales tax by a half-cent to raise funding for public safety staffing and services. Measure P was a temporary, 10-year, half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2016 to fund high priority infrastructure needs in the City.
Mayor John McCann said things will be challenging in the future.
“I have to say that our team has done a great job in making sure that we make a solid foundation, as much as we could to be ready to weather the next storm of a recession,” he said. “Right now, we have done a really good job to make sure that we have fully funded reserves, the Pension Obligation Trust, and doing things to ensure that we can maintain as many employees as possible.”
The General Fund adopted $258.2 million in FY 2024 and proposed $274.1 million for FY 2025.Grand total of all funds was $548.2 million adopted for FY 2024, and $608.5 million proposed for FY 2025, with a proposed surplus of $13.2 million FY 2025.
Key highlights of the budget include:
Adding 38 positions to the city, for a total of more than 1,300 positions. The new positions include two more in the Park Ranger Program to enhance the City’s Homeless Outreach Team, nine more fire personnel for the new Bayfront Fire Station, one community engagement specialist to provide citywide support, and three additional engineering staff to support infrastructure projects, among others
Maintaining minimum reserve levels at 23% of the General Fund operating expenditures, which provides the city with an enhanced level of financial stability in case of economic slowdown or emergencies
Spending $10.8 million in Measure P funding to make improvements and repairs to parks, recreation centers, drainage, sidewalk repair and other facilities, and ongoing Measure A funding to support public safety expenditures. Altogether, Measure A has already enabled the city to add 120 public safety positions to date.
Community input was a key part of the budget process. The city held two community workshops to hear from the public on spending priorities. The workshops took place on April 17 and 24, with prior outreach in English and Spanish.
For more information, visit the City’s Budget Information webpage at chulavistaca.gov.
