As many of us who live in San Diego are aware the city has a substantial budget deficit of $252 million. Of course the city politicians are blaming this on the fact that the voters recently rejected a sales tax increase, but do not comment on the real reasons for this deficit. The major cause for this deficit is easy to ascertain … bloated spending and very generous pension benefits.
For instance, the city of San Diego spent about $230 million last year on homelessness (the 2024/2025 budget year), and
since 2015, the City of San Diego has invested $55 million on bike lane projects, some of which will be built out through next year. Very very few use these bike lanes, and even fewer want them.
According to recent reports, San Diego currently spends around half a billion dollars annually on pension costs, with the city’s yearly pension payment recently exceeding $500 million.
After reading about how much financial difficulty the city of San Diego finds itself in, the question must be asked if the city of San Diego is unusual in this regard.
From Just the News:
A large majority of the 75 largest cities in the U.S. are in financial trouble, according to a new report.
Truth in Accounting released the report, which evaluated the 75 largest cities in the country, arguing that the majority of cities have financial problems and owe thousands of dollars in debt per taxpayer.
“This means that to claim their budgets were balanced – as is required by law in the 75 cities – elected officials have not included the full cost of the government in their budget calculations and have pushed costs onto future taxpayers,” the report said.
According to the report, retiree health benefits and pensions are a major weight around the necks of many city budgets, dragging them into debt.
“The 75 cities had $321 billion worth of assets available to pay bills; their debt, including unfunded retirement benefit promises, amounted to $621.7 billion,” the report added. “Pension debt totaled $192.1 billion, and other postemployment benefits (OPEB), mainly retiree health care, totaled $136.4 billion.
The report evaluated the cities as of fiscal year 2023. It found New York City as the worst city fiscally, followed by Chicago, Portland, New Orleans and Honolulu. The best city came in as Washington, D.C., followed by Lincoln, Irvine, Tampa and Cleveland.
I guess these stats across the U.S. just prove the feelings of many politicians … it’s easy to spend other people’s money!
3/7/25