The City of Sonoma General Fund Budget for 2024/25 shows a deficit of $2,856,287, roughly two million dollars more than the previous year’s budget. What’s more, a five-year forecast prepared by the City Manager and Finance Department indicates that deficits will continue, with a deficit of at least $2 million in each of the next five years, as the chart below shows.
During this budget cycle, increases in the cost to the city for police services (provided by contract with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office) and firefighters (though a contract with Sonoma Valley Fire and Rescue) amounted to roughly $1 million over the previous year.
While solutions to narrowing the budget deficit were not specifically identified during the City Council’s recent budget approval hearings, City Manager David Guhin noted the steps the city is already taking and others that he feels should be taken. Included among the steps already taken are:
In addition, he identified steps to be taken in the immediate future to address the budget deficit. These include:
“The General Fund reserve has grown to approximately $13.3 million over the past years, more than adequate to weather a modest downturn or even a more serious recession,” he noted in his report, but also concedes that “If the above strategy types do not yield sufficient fiscal savings to the General Fund, the City will need to explore service level reduction strategies in order to achieve fiscal sustainability. This is considered a strategy of least desirability due to negative impacts on residents, and municipal infrastructure.”
Report by Larry Barnett