2026/2027 Budget

Building Long-Term Stability and Protecting Violence Prevention, Youth Programs, and Senior Services

This month, Sacramento’s 2026/2027 budget goes into effect. For the third consecutive year, we faced a structural budget deficit. To overcome the $66.2M deficit, the Council began work early, adopting a budget development policy in October and holding a series of budget work sessions beginning in March. In June, the City Council adopted a $1.7B budget that protects violence prevention, senior services, and youth programs.

In previous deficit years, we picked the low-hanging fruit, sweeping reserves and vacancies. This year, with those choices no longer available, we had to make tough decisions. Council focused on what was most important to our city: jobs, core services, economic development, public safety, and homelessness.

Although our homelessness response faced necessary budget reductions, we were able to reform the program to be more cost-effective and serve even more people.

Thank you to the Councilmembers and City staff for working collaboratively to find creative solutions – expenditure reductions, operational efficiencies, funding shifts, and revenue strategies – to sustain these programs.

While our work is not finished, this budget has made meaningful progress toward closing the structural gap. About 75% of the solutions introduced are ongoing and will help reduce future deficits.

Looking to the future, we must grow our economy to stabilize the budget and restore more of the programs that enrich our city. This budget strengthened our economic development initiative, furthering efforts to attract investment, support business growth, expand job opportunities, and strengthen Sacramento’s long-term economic competitiveness.

This budget reflects our values, protects our essential services, and helps reduce future deficits.

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