Santa Barbara City Council Doesn’t Budge on Budget Reserve Policy

During the most recent budget season, after realizing that the city was projecting an operating deficit over the next few years, Santa Barbara’s city council floated the idea of rethinking its reserve policies to allow the city to make any necessary changes or free up money for emergencies.

But when the potential changes came before the council Tuesday, they rejected all Finance Committee recommendations except one — a technical fix that combined the two separate waterfront reserve funds into one without making any changes to the policies or reserve target levels overall.

The Finance Committee had recommended other options — the city could consider opening a line of credit; it could reduce its disaster reserve target level from 15 percent to 10 percent; or it could free up 3 percent of its Fiscal Year 2025-2026 budget with a plan to replenish it back to its current level by 2030 — but all suggestions fell flat during discussion.