San Diego woke up today to find the city staring at a roughly $17 million midyear budget hole, largely due the the scaled-back paid parking plan at Balboa Park. The rollback, driven by late timetable changes and reduced resident fees after months of public pushback, shrank a revenue line that had already been baked into the FY26 budget. City officials are now warning that the shortfall could force tough midyear cuts to services and programs in neighborhoods across the city.
The figure was reported by The San Diego Union-Tribune and then shared publicly by Mayor Todd Gloria on X. In his post, the mayor highlights the Balboa Park parking pullback as a key reason the city’s budget math no longer pencils out.
San Diego faces a new $17M budget hole, largely due to backing off Balboa Park paid parking https://t.co/uJ7ogG8nA7
— The San Diego Union-Tribune (@sdut) February 3, 2026
What’s in the budget math
The adopted FY26 budget assumed about $15.5 million in Balboa Park parking revenue, with roughly $12.5 million from user fees and about $3 million from zoo parking. That money was earmarked for park upkeep. As reported by the Times of San Diego, those projections were central to how the city balanced the books last summer.
Staff review shrunk the take
A later city staff report took a much more conservative view. It projected about $2.9 million in Balboa Park parking revenue from January through June, a shortfall of roughly $9.6 million compared with the earlier assumptions, according to Voice of San Diego. Local TV coverage has also walked through the delayed rollout, the free-hour concessions and the lower resident rates that, taken together, shrank this year’s haul, per 10News.
Mayor’s response and next steps
In response, Mayor Todd Gloria’s office moved this week to trim some council additions and dial back revenue expectations. In a budget action release, the mayor’s office said it reduced new revenue estimates by just under $3.55 million and warned that, “If the revenues that the City Council passed and projected don’t fully materialize—and all indicators suggest they won’t—we’ll be forced to cut costs mid-year,” the City of San Diego says.
Council politics and public pushback
The political fallout has been fast. Museums, community leaders, and elected officials have publicly pushed to limit or pause the new fees, arguing that Balboa Park needs to remain broadly accessible. Council President Joe LaCava and several colleagues have floated suspending parking charges for city residents, and KPBS reports that a council vote on a resident exemption could come as soon as Feb. 9, a move that would widen the revenue gap unless another funding source appears…