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Dear Neighbor,
Every budget is a statement of priorities.
It shows what we are willing to protect, what we are working to change, and what tradeoffs we’re willing to make. My last newsletter provided an overview of our current budget status and how we are addressing rising costs as demand for services continues to climb. In just over a week I’ll submit my June Budget Message for Council consideration and we will prepare to vote on a balanced budget for fiscal year 2026-2027. Now is a good time to contact your councilmember to express your priorities as we weigh budget tradeoffs (you can also reply to this email to share your priorities with me).
In parallel, I want to make sure you are aware that the City is deep in labor negotiations with a number of our bargaining units, which collectively represent roughly 65% of the city’s workforce. As you know, I firmly believe that every financial commitment we make has to be sustainable, not just for the following fiscal year, but in the long term.
I want to be clear about the spirit in which I approach these conversations: San José cannot succeed without a strong, stable, and respected workforce. We need talented people to choose public service, stay in public service, and feel proud of the work they do for this city.
Our city employees answer emergency calls, maintain parks, repair streets, issue permits, staff libraries and community centers, respond to encampments, support public safety, run our airport, operate our wastewater system, and do the daily work residents count on.
They deserve respect. They deserve gratitude. And, in a region with one of the highest costs of living in the country, they deserve a fair contract.
But fairness also requires honesty about what the City can responsibly afford. I know some will try to turn this into a binary question: Are you for workers or against them? I reject that framing. The real question is whether we can reach an agreement that is fair to employees, responsible to taxpayers, and sustainable enough to protect city services over time.
When a city spends beyond its means, the consequences are significant. Those decisions show up later as hiring freezes, service reductions, longer response times, slower permits, fewer library hours, delayed maintenance, dirtier parks, and even layoffs and more pressure on the employees who remain to do more with less.
Our City Manager has presented a balanced proposed operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year with minimal impacts to the nearly 7,000 public servants who work for the City. But if we make ongoing wage commitments beyond our ability to pay for them, future budget cycles will be far more painful — and the services residents rely on will be harder to protect.
That is why we have to be disciplined, even as we work in good faith toward fair agreements. Beyond wages, our workforce has raised important issues around technology, artificial intelligence, and the future of work.
On artificial intelligence, my view is straightforward: technology should always be a net positive for our workers. It should reduce repetitive administrative work, improve response times, help us process permits and service requests more efficiently, and free up our workforce to focus on the human judgment, care, and accountability that public service requires.
We are already seeing what that can look like. Through our AI Upskilling Program, we are on track to train 1,000 employees to use AI more effectively and responsibly.
One of those employees is Stephen, a data analyst on our 311 team. Stephen used to spend hours sorting through thousands of rows of resident service request data to identify trends and recurring issues. After completing the training, he built an AI assistant that helps organize that information into themes and categories — allowing the City to better understand what residents are reporting and respond more quickly.
San José is asked to do a lot with limited resources. Our residents want visible progress on homelessness, housing affordability, public safety, beautification, economic development, and the basic neighborhood services that shape daily life. Delivering that progress requires both a stable workforce and a stable budget. We cannot have one without the other.
I believe we can get there if we keep our shared commitment to public service at the center of the conversation, and not make commitments to our workers that sound good today but force deeper cuts tomorrow.
The best contract is not the one that wins a headline. It is the one that protects workers, preserves services, respects taxpayers, and keeps San José moving forward.
That is the outcome I will work toward. And if you want to work towards it too, scroll further to speak in support of my upcoming June Budget Message.
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