California, from school district, to the State is bankrupt. Cities and schools are begging Sacramento for a bailout. Yet the State is having billions cut from the Feds—due to support for criminals, discrimination and sexual grooming in our government schools. The State is begging for tens of billions for the train to nowhere, that if finished few could afford to ride.
The hallmark of the 2026 election will not be the election of a new Governor. It will be the massive number of bonds, sales and parcel taxes for the ballot. Think we are over taxed now? The 2026 election will be a world record. Voting will be easy—vote NO on every tax increase.
“The California state budget has a $10 – $70 billion deficit. And that does not include the unfunded public employee pension debt, totaling over $1.5 trillion. Last May 2024, the Globe reported that The Legislative Analyst’s Office updated spending plan in Gov. Newsom’s revised budget showed a $55 billion budget deficit as opposed to the $27.6 billion figure Newsom presented. The $70 billion figure is from the LAO last year’s projections. This year, Gov. Newsom claimed the budget was balanced, but that’s only because he is running for president.
Politico kindly reported this week that Gov. Gavin Newsom is likely staring down a $10 billion budget hole that could deepen to $20 billion or more. With pending federal budget and DOGE cuts coming, that number is going to climb exponentially because Gov. Newsom and Democrats rely heavily on federal funding in their budget.”
How Many California Cities are Running Huge Budget Deficits?
With the state budget deficit, are California’s cities also staring down the barrel of a loaded gun?
By Katy Grimes, California Globe, 5/12/25 https://californiaglobe.com/fl/how-many-california-cities-are-running-huge-budget-deficits/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKO_YRleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETExYXdCWVhtVEpCbmJqZ0Y2AR7eueY5-bFbmoK00w4TTBmdHCck8IHmGDemt5QbAk4D7iud6nS-wDUW5OL-eA_aem_tSHl5ktHFc4XZibCNpKSzg
How many California cities are running huge budget deficits, yet refuse to cut out the real cancer – the bureaucratic and administrative bloat? California’s colleges and universities too – they are cutting sports and academic programs, but not the high-salaried, middle management administrative bloat.
The California state budget has a $10 – $70 billion deficit. And that does not include the unfunded public employee pension debt, totaling over $1.5 trillion. Last May 2024, the Globe reported that The Legislative Analyst’s Office updated spending plan in Gov. Newsom’s revised budget showed a $55 billion budget deficit as opposed to the $27.6 billion figure Newsom presented. The $70 billion figure is from the LAO last year’s projections. This year, Gov. Newsom claimed the budget was balanced, but that’s only because he is running for president.
Politico kindly reported this week that Gov. Gavin Newsom is likely staring down a $10 billion budget hole that could deepen to $20 billion or more. With pending federal budget and DOGE cuts coming, that number is going to climb exponentially because Gov. Newsom and Democrats rely heavily on federal funding in their budget.
As the Globe recently reported, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is bragging that California owns the 4th largest economy in the world. But he leaves out some important details, like poverty, homelessness, crime, taxes, gas prices, housing costs, illegal aliens, welfare recipients, and a $1.5+ trillion total budget deficit, just for starters. And, California is the 1st most regulated state in the U.S. And, California has 15.6% of the nation’s unemployed – a third higher than the state’s overall share of US population.
What Dan Walters reported this week should be repeated in every daily news article for the rest of the year:
“…since Newsom became governor in 2019, state spending has increased, on average, by 9% a year while annual revenues have grown by just 6%. The difference between those two numbers constitutes what budget mavens call a ‘structural deficit,’ meaning that spending baked into law far exceeds what the current revenue system can generate.
The underlying discrepancy between income and outgo is important to remember, because when Newsom unveils his revised budget he’s likely to cite the Los Angeles wildfires and Trump’s tariffs as factors in the budget’s gap.
Both of those events are likely to increase the deficit, but they didn’t cause it. The deficit exists because Newsom and the Legislature have chronically spent more than the revenue system produces, even though Californians have one of the nation’s highest state and local tax burdens, relative to the state’s economy.”
As the Globe frequently reports, It is important to remember that when Gov. Jerry Brown was (re)elected in 2011, the state budget was $98 billion. The state’s population was a little over 38 million. Brown doubled the budget to $199.3 billion in 8 years – with no measurable increase in population. Gov. Gavin Newsom inherited Brown’s $199.3 billion budget, and has grown it to over $330 billion in 6 years – while losing population.
So are California’s cities also staring down the barrel of a loaded gun?
The City of Los Angeles has a $1 billion+ city budget deficit,
San Diego is over $300 million in debt.
The City of Sacramento has a $66 million budget deficit.
San Francisco has a $876 million budget deficit.
San Jose projected a $60 million budget shortfall, then ratcheted it down to $35.6 million, but is projecting a $52.9 million deficit for 2026.
The City of Fresno is facing a budget deficit of over $20 million in the 2026 budget. In 2025, the city expects to have an end-of-year surplus of nearly $15 million, but according to City Manager Georgeanne White, without federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars, 2025 could end up in the red, yourcentralvalley.com reports.
Oakland is facing a $268 million deficit over the next two fiscal years.
Berkeley has a $28M budget deficit.
What will cities do to address their budget deficits?
Sacramento is proposing cutting Sacramento Police Department employees, and raising parking fees. How innovative. LA Mayor Karen Bass announced several cuts and rollbacks in the city budget, including layoffs of 1,600 employees and the elimination of 1,000 positions. Bass also agreed to a reduced salary. San Diego will make cuts, including to police, homeless services, libraries, and other essential services. San Diego city lawmakers and employees, however, aren’t getting pay cuts. While Los Angeles and San Francisco are making a lot of sacrifices to cut back on their deficits, including SF Mayor Daniel Lurie not even taking a salary, San Diego isn’t taking those needed drastic steps, the Globe reported.
Smaller California cities work very hard to stay in the black, avoiding deficit spending, but Mayors report that unfunded mandates coming from the Legislature and Governor make it very difficult. One Mayor told the Globe, “these unfunded mandates are killing us.”
“The Governor’s mandating that we build houses even though we don’t have the resources, i.e. Public Safety and or water to cover the offset of new housing… he doesn’t care. He’s mandating it,” the Mayor said.
Others who have served on city councils said that state unfunded mandates put cities in a really tight spot, which forces what the governor wants – compliance. When cities are forced to spend on programs that do not come funded, programs that they created and budgeted for, based on the needs of their communities, get cut.
Then there are the many Democrat run blue cities, which have been deficit spending for decades. Eventually the bill comes due.
Remember in 2022 when Gov. Newsom proudly (smugly) declared that California had a $97.5 billion surplus? Rather than investing in critical infrastructure like new water storage, Newsom and Democrats spent the historical budget surplus.
But that wasn’t enough for some in the supermajority party. They wanted more. Even during a surplus, “they want to raise taxes on water, fertilizer, dairy, tires, guns and businesses,” then-Senator Jim Nielsen told the Globe. “Why does the state need to raise taxes when there’s a surplus? They are spending their way into another crushing deficit that will harm the poor, blind and disabled, and squeeze the middle class once again.”
Sen. Nielsen was right – that spending was the pork-barrel projects injected by individual legislators into California’s state budget.
Gov. Newsom can’t even expect a federal bailout this year, with DOGE “dogeing” out-of-control federal spending – like bailing irresponsible blue states out.
Under Gov. Newsom’s watch, spending on homelessness increased exponentially, as did the drug-addicted mentally-ill vagrants, crime is historically high, freedoms have been restricted, taxes greatly increased, non-citizens receive health care for free, public school kids’ math and literacy scores are in the toilet, the government-created water shortage has gotten worse. And all of this was taking place as California taxpayers, and California businesses were fleeing the state… taking their tax dollars with them.
Gov. Newsom smugly claims California’s population is growing, refusing to address that those coming in are illegal immigrants, and those leaving are taxpayers and business owners.
And don’t forget California gas prices are expected to escalate 75% to $8.43 per gallon in 2026 with two oil refineries closing. Thank Gavin Newsom for that as well.
