As the new fiscal year approaches, city leaders are seeing economic uncertainty rearing its head in the form of inflation, slowed revenue growth but also opportunity.
During the June 17 San Luis Obispo City Council meeting, the 2025-27 budget was adopted to address some of those uncertainties.
For residents like Ben Salerno and Carrie Jones, it's easy to enjoy living in the city.
“I love the weather. The food is pretty good. I think we could be more diverse,” Salerno said.
“I love that it's a safe place to raise our family," Jones added.
There’s no shortage of reasons why people love to live in San Luis Obispo but the economic reality of what it takes to live here is that it’s expensive, and the next 2025-27 adopted budget reflects the current challenges.
“For sales tax and development revenue, we're expecting less revenue than we had anticipated," City Manager Whitney McDonald explained. "So we needed to adjust our budget to address that."
According to the budget, sales tax revenue is "now trending below what was forecasted last year by at least $2.4 million annually."
For 2025-26, the adopted budget is about $217 million. It’s a far cry from the 2024-25 budget that was $283 million, with the biggest change, a $40 million drop in the parking fund.
“It looks like a bit of a large deficit when in reality that's really the cost to build our new parking structure," McDonald explained.
“But I know there's a new structure being built, so that's helpful," Salerno said of the Cultural Arts District Parking Structure set to be completed in 2026.
With every budget, there are major city goals.
“It's a tradition that we have here in San Luis Obispo to engage the community really heavily in getting feedback on what they want to see us prioritize over our two-year financial plan process," she said.
The major city goals for the newly adopted budget include:
- Cultural Vitality, Economic Resilience, and Fiscal Sustainability
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- Homelessness Response
- Housing and Neighborhood Livability‐ Healthy, Safe, and Affordable
- Infrastructure and Sustainable Transportation
- Open Space, Climate Action, and Resilience
Jones says she'd like to see more access for families to the public pool and wants better lighting for the downtown area.
“We're continuing to make really big investments in the community through our capital projects and continuing to work on a lot of the programs that our community and our council has told us and identified as being real priorities,” McDonald said.
McDonald cited the future completion of the Righetti Ranch Community Park and Cultural Arts District as ways that community members can see the fruits of their labor.
“People should be able to see that coming forward and hopefully engage with us in those conversations that we're looking forward to, to those and being able to see the investments in the capital projects happening on the ground,” she said.
