Opinion: San Diego Doesn’t Have a Revenue Problem. It Has a Management Problem.

Bailey is a former mayor of the city of Coronado.

San Diego’s latest efforts to balance the budget expose a City Council out of touch with residents and disconnected from everyday realities. That reality, one of increasing taxes and fees with decreasing results, demands an honest conversation about what’s broken at City Hall followed by accountability residents have yet to see.

Let’s start with the fundamentals. The city claims it needs more revenue, but last year, San Diego collected a record $2.1 billion in general fund tax revenue. Since 2015, the city’s population grew by about 1 percent, while over that same period, city staffing increased by roughly 27 percent.

Even more striking is where the growth in city staffing occurred. Non-public safety staffing grew five times faster than the city’s population growth. The number of middle managers exploded, up more than 460 percent since 2015. In fact, middle-management positions grew 23 times faster than frontline workers. Today, San Diego has double the number of middle managers per employee than the city of Los Angeles. The increased staffing levels are responsible for the city’s annual pension payments, now consuming 20 cents of every dollar it takes in.

Despite record staffing, record spending and record revenues, according to the city’s own data, performance has declined across nearly every core city function. Police response times for Priority 1 calls were approximately 13 minutes in 2015, but today average between 30 to 45 minutes. Street conditions continue to deteriorate with fewer miles of streets being maintained and 30 percent of roads rated as poor or worse. It now takes more than 500 days for a streetlight to be repaired. Permit processing is slower than ever. Homelessness is near record highs. All the while deferred maintenance for virtually all city infrastructure stacks up. 

These facts point to an unavoidable conclusion: San Diego does not have a revenue problem. It has a spending and management problem.

The city is running a structural deficit, meaning it has approved budgets that spend more than they collect year after year. The operating gap alone approaches $100 million annually, even when using the city’s rosy projections. If accurate, the city will deplete general fund reserves in FY 2028.  

But even more alarming, when you add the cost of rebuilding depleted reserves, addressing years of deferred maintenance to streets and facilities and making modest investments to stop falling further behind, the honest funding gap approaches $600 million per year.

That’s why nickel-and-diming residents for parking, recreational leagues, trash collection and one-time budget patches won’t solve a structural problem. It’s just math. 

Fixing San Diego’s budget requires a fundamental reset at City Hall. Right-sizing the workforce to 2015 levels and reducing excess management could save approximately $315 million annually while lowering pension obligations by $130 million, without reducing service quality. Zero-based budgeting would improve fiscal discipline, while expanded managed competition could generate $50 to $100 million in savings. A more effective homelessness strategy must combine one-time outreach with meaningful enforcement that prioritizes clean and safe public spaces. Finally, a refocus on core city services and transferring responsibilities to the appropriate agency, such as allowing the District Attorney to handle misdemeanor prosecution,  like every other city in the county, would save San Diego taxpayers and produce better results. 

These reforms won’t be popular inside City Hall. But City Hall’s results haven’t been popular with the public either.

The good news is that a failing San Diego is not inevitable. The city is not broke, it’s mismanaged. It’s not ungovernable, it’s rudderless. And it’s not incapable, it’s unaccountable.

With strong existing revenue, a realigned workforce and a new leadership focused on core city responsibilities, San Diego can once again become a functioning city that delivers results and reconnects with the residents it serves.

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