Here’s how San Jose’s mayor wants to spend next year’s budget

Two and a half months after becoming mayor of America’s 10th-largest city, Matt Mahan unveiled a detailed look into how he intends to spend this coming year’s budget, heavily focusing on public safety, blight and homelessness.

The mayor’s proposals, however, face a slew of potential fiscal obstacles: the possibility of a recession combined with a tech sector that has recently taken a beating with Silicon Valley Bank’s swift closure, the winding down of federal stimulus money from the pandemic and a tax base that has traditionally been smaller than comparable cities. Compared to the 2022-23 $5.3 billion budget, San Jose is expected to see a nearly $30 million surplus in the next fiscal year, though the excess dollars could dramatically slow down in the not-so-distant future, according to an analysis by the city manager’s office.

Mahan must also overcome these hurdles amid a difficult political environment as he sits on a council with few allies and a narrow set of avenues to get his policy proposals passed. For the mayor, the answer is what he calls a “back-to-basics” approach to the budget, which means spending money on what he views as essential city priorities, including the ability to get businesses and homes quickly built.

“New spending really needs to be concentrated on our top four priorities,” the mayor said in an interview on Monday. “We shouldn’t be doing more programming until we make progress on them.”

What are the big ticket items the mayor wants to spend money on?

To bolster public safety, Mahan wants to add an additional 15 police officers to San Jose’s police department while strengthening hiring incentives that include bonuses for referring applicants who get hired, a one-time relocation stipend and establishing a youth program to eventually attract more officers to its ranks.

As for homelessness, the mayor intends to build 500 units of emergency interim housing and explore options on how to prevent encampments from popping up again after unhoused residents find a home. Mahan said that would primarily involve “trauma-informed specialists,” as well as police to a lesser extent.

To reduce blight, more permanent funding is being proposed for beautification efforts that include trash pick-up and river cleaning.

Finally, the mayor wants to hire more planning department staff to break through a backlog of 500 building permits and offered the idea of establishing a program with local universities to create a pipeline of young talent. Mahan called this approach a “long-term” effort that he says will bring in a stronger tax base with more businesses and residents.

What’s behind these ideas from Mahan?

In his bid for mayor, Mahan ran on a “common sense” campaign that tapped into a growing frustration over quality of life issues and the ability for City Hall to address hard problems. In comparing himself to his predecessor Sam Liccardo, Mahan believes that city government should focus on the bread-and-butter issues. He’s also on a tight timeline to make his ideas turn into results — with an upcoming election for the seat fast approaching in 2024.

What happens next with these proposals?

The city council will have a chance to make its own changes to the mayor’s priorities by March 21. Those tweaks will then be incorporated into a more detailed budget document by City Manager Jennifer Maguire in May.

In the meantime, council members will send their own district’s budget proposals to the mayor that amount to roughly $300,000 each. The council then votes in June on a final budget, which begins on July 1.

How are the mayor’s supporters and critics responding to his ideas?

Ann Ravel, a former member of the Federal Election Commission and a longtime supporter of the mayor, said she thought Mahan’s approach to the budget makes sense, especially his approach to the city’s roughly 5,000 unhoused residents.

“He’s trying to balance the ability for people who are homeless to find a place to live with the rest of the community and their fears of walking the streets,” she said. Ravel did say she thought beautification efforts shouldn’t be as high of a priority, considering the city has “so many other problems.”

But Mahan’s opponents in the city’s labor bloc were quick to come out against his budget on Tuesday.

“During his campaign for mayor, Mahan railed against City spending, promising voters a smarter, more common sense approach,” wrote South Bay Labor Council Executive Officer Jean Cohen in a statement. “Yet in his first opportunity to outline a bold, comprehensive vision for the City of San Jose, Mayor Mahan comes up short.”

Cohen said Mahan is outsourcing the work to implement his ideas to the city manager’s office — and called his efforts to hire more planning department staffers “ambiguous at best”.