Due to a state audit, Cupertino lost about $30M online sales tax per year.
For FY 2023-24, Cupertino reduced the spending to $120M (the spending was $130M for FY 2022-23), a $10M reduction compared to previous fiscal year. The $10M reduction was mainly Service-Level Reductions.
Below is a screenshot for FY 2023-24 budget.
According to staff report on 01/17/2024 (snapshot on 1/23/2024, the original link is here which will download a file to your computer), even with budget cutting made in FY 2023-24, Cupertino is still facing $10M budget deficit. And the gap will grow up to $15M in ten years.
To reduce the budget deficit, the City Council is seeking to
- Increase revenue with new taxes and increasing fees for city services
- Reduce spending with potential service-level reductions (snapshot on 1/21/2024. The original link is here which will download a file to your computer).
At the same time, Cupertino Voice performed some budget related surveys. One promising suggestion for reducing the budget, endorsed by a majority of respondents to Survey #2, was to “Scaling back the Staff Per 1,000 Residents to FY 2014-15 level". This measure alone could save the city about $9M per year. The results of Survey #2 were shared with the City Council with both oral and written communications.
City staff proposed a list of 32 potential service-level reductions (SLR). Most of them will affect residents everyday life.
Cupertino Facts also had a nice article covers this topic.
Below are sceenshots for those SLRs
