Balboa Park Operating Funds: What a Tangled Web

OB Rag Staff Report

Rag stories about Balboa Park have what reporters call “legs” — they get lots of views and comments. This has been especially true since City Hall imposed parking fees that have threatened the Park’s solvency by driving away visitors.

So we weren’t surprised when our April 27 story on a $1.8 million reduction in the 2027 Park budget became a “top post.” Commenters generally agreed that the city has utterly failed the park and must turn over its management to an independent nonprofit.

But one comment piqued our interest. Don said the city hadn’t actually cut $1.8 million from the park. He contended that the city was simply going to shift $1.8 million from a “Developed Regional Parks” fund over to pay for Balboa Park operating expenses.

If that’s true, money was moved from a park-related pot of money into the Balboa Park pot, and the same amount was taken out of the Balboa Park pot and spent on … something or other.

We needed to take a closer look. We pried open a series of budget documents. And we found a whirling mess of numbers that all point in one direction: The much-neglected Balboa Park is going to lose even more money and maintenance support in the coming year.

Let’s start with staff.  Balboa Park is slated to lose these specific positions:

• five Park Rangers,
• five Grounds Maintenance Workers (II),
• one Grounds Maintenance Worker (I), and
• 0.5 Custodian.

The Custodian position was responsible for upkeep of the public restroom next to the Air & Space Museum. That restroom has long been in the running for the grossest lavatory in the Park. Now it will be the clear winner.

Shuffling money around is a standard municipal budget shell game. It probably explains why the City is moving funding for the Balboa Park tram, which used to come from the Transient Occupancy Tax, into the General Fund and placing it in the Park’s budget. That expands the budget by $1.3 million in expenses and $1.2 million in revenue. But it’s basically a pass-through that doesn’t add staff or services.

When we subtract that, the Park’s underlying operating budget is closer to $12.4 million, and the budgeted expenditures for actual park operations is being reduced by closer to $3 million, not $1.8 million.

The “Developed Regional Parks” category seems to be a bureaucratic phantom. It has no breakdown in funding and no designated staff, so we found no evidence of money being moved into or out of there. It used to be a real division with staff. But it was broken up and distributed to other budget lines. Now it’s just a funding bucket.

And the FY2027 budget doesn’t tell us how the revenue from the new Park parking fees will be spent.

The Gloria administration contends that parking revenue “creates a reliable source of funding to support the care and operation of the park.” The Rag contends the revenue is instead channeled to the General Fund, where it – like all General Fund revenue – pays for city services, which include our parks.

There’s an obvious way to clear up this confusion: Just release the actual budget numbers. Better yet, let’s have the City Auditor or the city’s Independent Budget Analyst settle this dispute.

A final note:  This analysis benefited from the review and input of a former City of San Diego employee familiar with park and budget processes. Because current and former staff may be reluctant to speak publicly for fear of retaliation, we will always protect the anonymity of anyone who contributes to our investigative City Hall reporting.