Santa Ana weighs cuts to after-school program, parks amid $13M deficit

Santa Ana officials are proposing cuts to an after-school program, park maintenance and emergency services to address a $13 million budget shortfall, Voice of OC reported. The reductions come as the city braces for tens of millions in future revenue losses when a voter-approved sales tax increase is projected to expire.

The proposed reductions — which could eliminate the Police Athletic and Activity League's after-school program and scale back round-the-clock park security — arrive as officials warn that fiscal pain will extend well beyond this budget cycle, driven by the projected sunset of Measure X, a voter-approved sales tax that has long shored up city revenues.

Santa Ana faced an initial projected deficit of $19 million, which city staff trimmed to $13 million through fee increases, eliminating funding for vacant positions and scaling back part-time staffing, Voice of OC reported. Staff identified $8.4 million in cuts and cost-recovery measures, leaving a $4.7 million gap the council must still address.

The most contested proposal is the elimination of the Police Athletic and Activity League's after-school program and summer camp, which costs $877,000 annually — roughly $5,400 per child — and serves fewer than 90 children. The PAAL's lunchtime fitness component, which reaches 2,200 students across the city, would be spared under the proposal.

Councilwoman Thai Viet Phan said there was no painless path forward. "That's the only thing we can do right now is we have to make big cuts to things that we do love and that we've supported because we have to make the numbers work," Phan said at the May 5 council meeting, according to Voice of OC. Councilwoman Jessie Lopez pressed for a per-child cost comparison before any final decision: "If a Parks and Rec after school program serves 50 kids at X-amount of dollars and a PAAL program serves a comparable number at a materially higher cost, that's a relevant data point that this city council should have."

Officials are also weighing nearly $1 million in park maintenance reductions, including eliminating one of 24 full-time, around-the-clock park security guards and cutting back mowing, pest control and baseball infield maintenance. Reducing a 24-hour ambulance unit to 12-hour operation would save an additional $250,000, according to the Voice of OC report.

The proposed reductions arrive as the city draws scrutiny for an earlier decision: Santa Ana returned a nearly $7 million state grant that would have funded after-school and childcare services for 500 children, Voice of OC noted. Residents had ranked youth programs among the top five spending priorities in a city survey.

Councilman Johnathan Hernandez urged the city to maximize reach rather than eliminate programs outright. "We need every single dollar to reach as many of the children that we can. Maybe we can bring some of those services into parks and recreation," Hernandez said. Phan acknowledged the PAAL cuts were deeply personal: "It hurts my heart because it was something that I really loved. But we're spending almost a million dollars for a very small number of residents, and those are the difficult cuts that we have to make." Lopez cautioned that more austerity lies ahead: "This budget cycle is not going to be the only budget cycle that hard cuts are going to be made. I want to make sure that we're making cuts where they make sense to make cuts without a massive impact to our families in this city."

Mayor Valerie Amezcua closed the May 5 discussion with a candid acknowledgment of the city's constraints: "It's not an easy task for us to sit up here and have discussions about what we'd like to cut. We all want so many things for our city to make it beautiful and a great place to live and a safe place to live. But we don't have that money," she said. The city council is expected to continue budget deliberations at a study session Tuesday evening.