In 2020, the city of San Diego budget authorized 11,820 full-time-equivalent positions. The budget for fiscal year 2026 carries 13,062. That is roughly 1,200 added positions in six years, while city population held flat.
The mayor’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 eliminates nearly $12 million of the city’s $13.8 million arts and culture budget — a cut of roughly 85% — along with reductions to libraries and recreation. But it trims only about 290 of the 1,200 positions added since 2020.
This is neither logical nor good governance. Start with the math.
City employees do not cost only their salaries. Fringe benefits — pensions, health care, related costs — add roughly 50%-60% on top of pay. A manager at $200,000 costs the city about $320,000 fully loaded. That figure is illustrative of the marginal, higher-compensation positions driving growth in internal functions, not the average employee.
Extend the cost over time. Use conservative assumptions: 20 years of work, 20 years of retirement benefits, discounted at a Treasury rate near 5%. Each such position carries a present-value commitment of roughly $4 million to $5 million. Across the 1,200 added positions, the long-term obligation runs into the billions of dollars.
That is arithmetic, not rhetoric.
Public finance has a rule: long-term costs should fund long-term benefits. Cities borrow to build assets that last — roads, water systems, public safety infrastructure. Those assets serve residents for decades.
Much of the staffing growth since 2020 does not produce such assets. It sits in internal functions: management, coordination, compliance, advisory roles. Those functions may have some short-term value. But they do not create durable public benefits that justify a forty-year financial obligation.
The burden does not fall evenly.
Many of the higher-compensation positions pay well into six figures, placing them in the top income brackets of San Diego County. The people who pay for them are not in those brackets. They are ordinary taxpayers — workers, renters, homeowners, small business owners.
This is regressive. It is a transfer from the middle to the top.
The timing makes the trade-off plain. The city is cutting libraries, recreation and 85% of arts funding — services open to everyone — while leaving most of the 2020–2026 staffing expansion intact. That is not progressive government. It is regressive extraction: average taxpayers subsidizing top-bracket managers while city hall cuts the library down the street.
The cost stretches across time. These positions generate decades of compensation and pension payments. The bill will be paid not just by today’s residents, but by children still in school — who will enter the workforce and help fund obligations created before they had any voice in the decision.
That is the generational issue.
The city has made a large, long-term commitment. It has not shown that the added staffing produces benefits of equal scale or duration. Without that showing, the commitment fails the basic test of sound public finance.
Cutting 290 positions while eliminating 85% of arts funding is the wrong trade. The right target is the 2020 baseline. Return citywide staffing to roughly 11,800 full-time-equivalent employees. Reduce internal headcount before cutting public-facing services.
Mark your calendar: the budget hearings are scheduled for May 4–8, and the City Council will vote in early June.
Van R. Whiting Jr. is principal of OneMoney Financial, a registered investment advisory practice in La Jolla. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
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