San Diego IT Budget Grows Slightly Amid Citywide $258M Deficit

Like several other large cities in the state, San Diego is working to reconcile a large budget deficit with its operational needs.

And voters haven’t helped, city leaders contend. The financial gap is — at least partially — being blamed on the failure of a 1 cent sales tax increase, Measure E, last November. In December, Mayor Todd Gloria said the measure’s defeat was a mandate from residents to operate with its “existing resources.”

But the federal and state governments have also been impacting local and regional outlooks. The Trump administration has garnered the majority of headlines in this respect, but the Newsom administration has also proposed funding shifts as the state navigates its own choppy financial waters — a not insignificant $12 billion deficit.

The constraints brought on by San Diego’s $258 million deficit for the upcoming fiscal year will mean some significant changes across the city’s departments, including staffing reductions and programmatic shifts. All totaled, the draft budget for the city stands at $6.04 billion, a nearly 4 percent increase over the previous year’s budget.

In the case of the IT department, the proposed operating budget is actually increasing over the previous year, assuming that it is adopted as is.

In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the department had an operating budget of $137.2 million, an increase over the previous year. This time around, the department is looking at a proposed $139.4 million for the coming fiscal year.

As noted earlier, some proposed programmatic reductions are on the menu. The May revision to the proposed budget outlines reductions to several program areas, including $1 million in non-personnel expenditures; $10,000 in search platforms and search engine hosting; and $161,000 in video conferencing license funds.

The department provides technology services to 34 other departments and 13,000 employees, spread across more than 300 locations, according to city documents.

According to the city’s FY25-FY29 IT Strategic Plan, the IT department is focusing its efforts in the following areas: business continuity and resilience; usability, responsiveness and advocacy; building IT projects from a citywide perspective; security; transparency and standards efficiencies; digital equity; and employee empowerment and development.

That document, published in June 2024, outlines the approach to each focus area but does not outline specific opportunities. The full plan is available here.

The finalized budget is expected in early June.

Deep Dive Resources:
FY2026-Final-Proposed-Budget-Report.pdf
FY25-FY29-IT-Strategic-Plan-sd.pdf