Fiscal Responsibility and the 2027 Budget
A balanced budget isn't the finish line. A financially healthy city has balanced operations, fully funded emergency reserves, well-maintained infrastructure, and the flexibility to respond when the unexpected happens. My goal isn't simply to balance one budget. It's to leave Santa Barbara in a stronger financial position than we found it.
2027 Budget
The City Council just adopted the Fiscal Year 2027 budget, and the story behind it should matter to every taxpayer in Santa Barbara. This was not an easy budget. It was a wake up call.
What Actually Happened
The city started this budget season staring at a projected multi million dollar shortfall. Through hiring delays, expenditure cuts, and shifting money out of funds meant for things like fleet replacement and street maintenance, staff worked the numbers down. The General Fund, the pool of money that pays for police, fire, streets, and most core services, is now budgeted at $257.2 million in revenue against $256.8 million in expenditures for FY 2027, a razor thin operating surplus of about $400,000 before any money goes toward reserves. Across every city fund combined, the adopted budget runs close to $730 million in revenue against about $724 million in expenditures.
That said, this is not a budget built entirely on one time money. It reflects a mix of ongoing expenditure reductions, efficiency measures, and revenue updates, alongside the one time strategies the City itself acknowledges relying on this year. According to the City's own numbers, once you account for the annual contribution the City is supposed to make to rebuild its reserves, this budget still runs a net shortfall of about $3.2 million.
The Reserve Problem
Here is the part that should worry every resident, and it comes straight from the city's own budget document, not from outside critics. Santa Barbara's reserve policy calls for two separate cushions: 15 percent of each fund's operating budget set aside for true emergencies, and another 10 percent for contingencies, for a combined 25 percent target. The city has fallen well below that target, and the City Administrator writes, in the opening budget message to the Council, that the "General Fund multi year forecast model projects operating deficits over the next five fiscal years with reserve funds being fully depleted by FY2029."
Read that again. The city that is supposed to have a rainy day fund covering a quarter of its annual operating budget is on a path to have nothing left in four years. Staff have identified more than 300 budget balancing ideas and are pursuing over 200 of them, netting $1.4 million in relief last year and another $3.6 million this year. That effort matters, and I do not want to understate it. But the honest read of the city's own forecast is that the current plan buys time. It does not close the gap.
My Perspective
I believe good government requires both compassion and discipline. Santa Barbara should invest in the services that make our community safe, healthy, and vibrant, but we also have a responsibility to ensure those investments are financially sustainable. Every dollar the City spends comes from taxpayers, and it should be treated with the same care that families and businesses use when managing their own budgets.
My perspective comes from experience. Before working in media buying and accounting, I spent fifteen years as a chef managing budgets, controlling costs, and making every dollar count. Today, I work with financial reporting and budgeting, where long term planning and fiscal discipline are part of my everyday job. I also know firsthand what it is like when the cost of living forces families to make difficult decisions. I had to leave Santa Barbara once because it became too expensive to stay. That experience continues to shape how I think about affordability, responsible spending, and protecting the long term financial health of our city.
That philosophy leads me to several priorities:
Protect core public services. Police, fire, emergency response, infrastructure, parks, and libraries are fundamental responsibilities of local government. Budget decisions should strengthen these services while ensuring they remain financially sustainable.
Spend smarter before spending more. Before asking taxpayers for additional revenue, I want the City to maximize cooperative purchasing programs such as Sourcewell, OMNIA Partners, and California's statewide purchasing agreements. These programs allow public agencies to leverage negotiated pricing, reduce procurement costs, and shorten purchasing timelines. Private companies use purchasing power to control costs every day, and local government should do the same whenever practical.
Live within our means. Santa Barbara voters have already approved significant sales tax increases in recent years. Our first responsibility should be managing existing revenues responsibly, improving operational efficiency, and rebuilding our financial reserves before asking residents to pay more.
At the end of the day, fiscal responsibility is not about saying yes or no to every spending proposal. It is about making thoughtful decisions that protect essential services, prepare for future challenges, and ensure that every tax dollar delivers value to the community. My goal is to leave Santa Barbara on stronger financial footing than when I arrived.
Why This Matters to Me
I did not come to this race as a politician. I came to it after running kitchens and now working in marketing and accounting, where the rule is simple. You cannot spend money you do not have, and you do not raid your savings to cover routine bills. Every dollar in that city budget is a tax dollar. Someone in this district earned it, and they are trusting the city to spend it carefully.
To me, using emergency reserves in normal times is not a technical budget footnote. It is concerning that the City's own long term forecast projects reserve depletion if structural deficits are not addressed, and I think most residents would agree. I am currently working toward my Certified Financial Planner credential and becoming a fiduciary, and I handle accounting work in my day job. I look at budgets as real things with real consequences, not just line items to argue about at a podium.