By David Garrick / SD Union-Tribune / June 18, 2025
San Diego’s most turbulent budget season in at least a decade took another turn Tuesday when Mayor Todd Gloria vetoed some last-minute cuts and expenditures the City Council added to the budget a week ago.
Employing a controversial and rarely used tool known as a line-item veto, Gloria rejected millions in council cuts — including $1.4 million in middle-management layoffs — and canceled nearly $5 million in new council spending.
The nine-member council now has until June 26 to accept or possibly override Gloria’s package of vetoes, with an override requiring a supermajority of six council members
The council approved the budget last week in a 7-2 vote, making six votes for a veto override seem possible. But that vote was a hard-fought compromise, with some members offering only tepid support.
In the line-item vetoes he issued Tuesday, the mayor chose not to change the most popular — and arguably the most important — budget restorations made by the council last week.
The council restored all recreation center hours, restored full Monday hours at 16 of the city’s 37 branch libraries and reversed plans to remove beach fire rings and close many public restrooms in beaches and parks.
But Gloria did veto the council’s full restoration of recreation programs at city reservoirs, limiting the restorations to the city’s two most popular reservoirs — Lake Murray and Lake Miramar — to save $208,000.
He also vetoed the council’s decision to fix flaws in the city’s wildfire prevention brush management system identified by the city auditor more than two years ago.
The council voted to add $1.1 million to the budget to fund five Fire Department positions needed to match how other big cities handle brush management. Gloria vetoed that money Tuesday.
This is the first time Gloria has used the line-item veto since he was elected mayor in 2020.
Created in 2006 when San Diego switched to a strong-mayor form of government, the line-item veto has only been used a handful of times since.
Mayor Jerry Sanders used it twice during lean budget years before and after the Great Recession of 2008. Mayor Bob Filner used it once in 2013, and Mayor Kevin Faulconer used it in 2017 — the last time before Tuesday.
Gloria said he was motivated by concerns that some budget revisions the council made a week ago are irresponsible and overly optimistic.
“I cannot in good conscience allow a budget built on shaky assumptions to move forward — not when we’re facing national economic uncertainty, global instability and real threats to the federal and state funding we rely on,” Gloria said in a news release.
The mayor said his decisions were guided by “credible” warnings about financial and operational risks from the city’s Independent Budget Analyst, Finance Department and the City Attorney’s Office.
The IBA, Charles Modica, said last week that economic headwinds make the budget approved by the council particularly risky.
“This risk of an economic downturn, or even a full recession, is heightened,” he said. “There is very little buffer built into the budget to be able to absorb continued declines (in revenue).”
Spending in the council-approved budget that the mayor vetoed Tuesday includes $900,000 in discretionary funds council members dole out to community groups and $450,000 council members give to arts groups.
The mayor also rejected the council’s decision to restore the chief operating officer position, a $450,000-a-year job the mayor eliminated last winter to help balance the budget.
“Reinstating it would decrease efficiency at City Hall,” the mayor said in his news release.
The mayor is also vetoing $757,000 for stormwater and flood prevention, contending the money wouldn’t address a specific need, $250,000 for a homeless outreach team and $95,000 to study vacation rental trends.
The mayor also vetoed the council’s creation of two management positions in the Office of Race and Equity, a move that would yield $450,000 in savings.
The vetoes also impact some efforts to generate savings by the council, including a proposal to eliminate 12 middle management jobs — seven of them vacant and five of them filled.
Gloria accepted the cuts affecting empty positions, but reversed the cuts affecting filled positions: a media services coordinator, $160,000; a media services manager, $167,000; a Compliance Department deputy director, $279,000; and two deputy chief operating officers, $400,000 each.
The mayor left in the budget several council efforts to generate more revenue, including a plan to start charging for parking in Balboa Park and at the San Diego Zoo sooner than expected, charging credit card fees at city parking meters and allowing digital billboards in the city.
But the mayor called the council’s revenue assumptions overly optimistic Tuesday.
The mayor is “adjusting the proposed revenue levels to reflect operational realities and realistic implementation timelines,” he said in his news release.
The new revenue sources, which had totaled roughly $10 million, were adjusted downward by about $3.5 million.
The budget angst this spring is the result of San Diego facing its largest projected deficit in more than a decade — a $258 million gap that increased to $350 million as revenues declined this spring.
The deficit has been blamed on a series of pay raises totaling about 23% that were given to most employees in 2023 and to voters’ November rejection of a one-cent sales tax hike that would have raised $400 million a year.
Gloria closed the gap with $100 million in cuts, with between $150 million and $200 million in new revenues from parking and other fees and by canceling $64 million in scheduled reserve contributions.
The 16 library branches slated for full Monday service under the budget approved Tuesday are Allied Gardens, downtown, Carmel Valley, Logan Heights, Oak Park, City Heights, Rolando, Linda Vista, Mira Mesa, Point Loma, Rancho Bernardo, San Ysidro, Skyline, Valencia Park, North Park and University Heights.
