Santa Clara unveils proposed FY2025–27 budget, restores 25% reserve and adds firefighter, police and bond-implementation staff

Santa Clara City Manager Jevon Grogan presented the first of three study sessions on the proposed fiscal year 2025–27 biennial operating budget and fiscal year 2025–26 capital improvements, saying, “As you know, this is the first of 3 meetings on the proposed budget. The second study session will occur on May 27, with a planned final adoption on June 10.”

The proposed plan would continue core city operations without personnel or service reductions while restoring key reserves and funding several targeted staffing and implementation needs. The finance director told the council the budget “also adopts a prudent fiscal approach” and emphasized restoring the city’s budget stabilization reserve to its policy level, which staff set at 25% of operating expenditures.

Why it matters: The draft seeks to balance one-time receipts and ongoing needs amid a projected structural gap in later years. City staff say the first-year operating budget uses one-time resources and carryover revenue to meet short-term priorities — including firefighter restorations, partial unfreezing of police positions and seed funding for administration of a $400 million voter-approved Measure I (GO bond) — while the 10-year forecast shows expenditures again outpacing revenues in several years.

Most important details

- Scale: The combined…