City of Sacramento proposes cuts to 46 filled positions, with park maintenance jobs on the line

The city of Sacramento released a proposed $1.7 billion budget for the 2026/2027 fiscal year Wednesday, with cuts that hit some of the city’s lowest paid employees – parks maintenance workers. 

The city is currently in a structural budget deficit of $66.2 million. Officials attribute the shortfall to inflation, less sales tax revenue over time, changes in the global economy and added funding towards new focus areas. These include homelessness services, which are traditionally handled by county governments, and other costs like new youth initiatives and citywide labor cost increases. 

Sacramento’s new City Manager Maraskeisha Smith, who joined the city in January, proposed several ways to close the gap for this year. In January, Smith told CapRadio that layoffs weren’t out of the question.

“Tough decisions are going to need to be made, and if that comes with lay offs, it's not something that we all like to talk about,” Smith said at the time. “When we talk about taking someone’s livelihood away, it could be a reality for us.”

The spending plan includes long-term strategy reductions and ways to increase revenue in the new fiscal year. Smith’s proposal calls for cutting 46 positions that are currently filled as well as around 100 vacant jobs.

According to the budget, not all employees will be let go – some will be moved into other vacant positions. Notably, no sworn police or fire personnel will be let go as a result of budget reductions. 

With that said, workers lower on the pay scale aren’t so lucky.  A little over half of the filled positions targeted are parks maintenance employees.

Payden Martin is a Business Representative for Local 39, a city employee union that represents a vast array of city employees. Martin said workers are devastated at the potential of being laid off.

“These people care about the parks they work in,” Martin said. “They say there’s no cuts to public safety, I think that the amount of needles they've cleaned out of parks and everything else is contrary to that.”

Martin said entry-level maintenance employees are most at risk. 

“That’s the entirety of the entry level parks maintenance worker classification,” he said. “There’s nowhere for them to go except out the door.” 

According to the budget, the city intends to hire contract workers for less money.

Other proposed cuts or reductions include:

• Approximately 40 vacant police positions and 20 vacant fire positions
• Dismantling Sacramento PD’s mounted police unit 
• Cuts to community pools, including positions and pool hours
• Reduced discounts for community center and clubhouse fees for qualifying organizations
• Reduce funding and a potential relocation of the X Street Navigation Center for unhoused residents 
• Ending the city's use of Shotspotter technology, which tracks gunfire sound 

In a reversal, the city said it will not raise parking meter prices or move ahead with resident parking permit fees. But Smith is recommending extending parking meter hours to 10 p.m. 

The first draft budget comes after multiple budget hearings in March at city council, where each city department presented different proposals for “baseline” cuts of 15%. 

The presentations helped save the police department’s Magnet Academy, after many showed support for maintaining the training program in high schools.

Though the city is inching towards passing a balanced budget for next year, Sacramento still faces long-term challenges. According to the city’s projections, after passing something balanced this year, officials will have to attend to a $35.4 million deficit next year. 

City council conversations involving the draft budget will begin on May 5 and continue until June 9, when the council expects to adopt a final budget.