How your city budget actually works
The answer
A city budget is not like a household budget or the federal budget. Nearly every state requires cities to adopt a balanced budget each year, no routine deficit spending. The standard cycle: departments submit spending requests, the city manager or mayor's budget office assembles those into a proposed budget, the council holds public hearings, then formally adopts it, sometimes with amendments.1 The fact that breaks the folk model is where the money actually goes. In San Diego's FY2026 Adopted Budget, $6.10 billion total, $2.17 billion General Fund, roughly 49.9 percent2 of General Fund resources went to Police and Fire-Rescue services alone, per the city's Independent Budget Analyst. That single category, not roads, parks, or libraries, is typically the largest share of a city's discretionary general fund, and personnel costs for those departments are largely fixed obligations set by labor contracts, not line items a council can easily cut in a bad year.
How it actually works
San Diego's FY2026 budget cycle followed the standard sequence: department requests, a manager-office proposed budget, council committee review, public hearings, and adoption, documented in the city's "Public's Guide to the Budget Process and the FY 2026 Adopted Budget" (Independent Budget Analyst, December 3, 2025).2 New York City ran a parallel but distinct process the same cycle. Alongside the main FY2026 budget adoption, the City Council's Participatory Budgeting program let residents directly vote on how to spend a defined pot of capital money. Between March 29 and April 6, 2025, more than 93,000 New Yorkers across 24 council districts voted, 61 percent by paper ballot, 39 percent online, open to residents 11 and older, to allocate $30 million in capital funding to specific local projects, the program's 14th cycle since it began in 2011.3 That is the exception that proves the rule: in the vast majority of a city's budget, residents get a hearing and a vote for their council member, not a direct allocation vote.
Who holds the power
The manager or mayor's budget office sets the baseline, deciding what departments get to ask for and what makes it into the proposed budget. The council can amend that proposal, cut or add line items, and must formally adopt it, but a council rarely rewrites a professional-staff budget wholesale in one cycle since so much spending, personnel contracts, debt service, state-mandated programs, is effectively locked in from prior years. Department heads then control internal allocation within their approved budget line, day-to-day spending choices the council does not review in real time. State law is the backstop: it typically mandates the balanced-budget requirement and sets hearing and public-notice rules cities must follow before adoption.
Where you come in
- Attend the public hearing required before budget adoption. Most cities post the proposed budget and hearing date weeks in advance. See how to use a budget hearing.
- Look for a participatory budgeting program in your city, following New York City's model of letting residents vote directly on a defined pot of funding.
- Request the department-level or line-item budget as a public record if it is not already posted online. See how to request local public records.
- Track public safety and personnel cost trends in your city's general fund, since these are usually the least flexible, largest share of spending.
Related
Sources
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Government Finance Officers Association, "Budgeting Best Practices and Budget Process 101," 2025. source ↩
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City of San Diego, Office of the Independent Budget Analyst, "Public's Guide to the Budget Process and the FY 2026 Adopted Budget," 2025. source ↩ ↩2
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New York City Council, "Speaker Adams, New York City Council Members Announce Results of FY 2026 Participatory Budgeting," 2025. source ↩