Our Letter on City Budget Transparency for FY26-27

On March 18, 2026, our Budget & Transparent Accounting Working Group submitted a letter to the City’s Budget and Audit Committee asking for the budgeting process to be clearer and more transparent for average people. Suggestions ranged from a mailer with city budget basics to an interactive “Build your own budget” dashboard.

Read our full letter below or download the PDF.

March 18, 2026

Peter Coletto, Financial Department Director
Roger Dickinson, Budget and Audit Committee Chair
Karina Talamantes, Budget and Audit Committee Member
Caity Maple, Budget and Audit Committee Member
Eric Guerra, Budget and Audit Committee Member
City of Sacramento
915 I Street, 5th Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814

FY 26-27 Budget Development Process

Mr. Coletto, et. al,

We strongly urge you to invest in transparency and oversight by creating a more accessible way for community members to view the annual budget and provide feedback. Currently, community members get a maximum of four weeks to review the annual budget and the Capital Improvement Plans, which combined are over 1000 pages, full of jargon, charts, and extremely difficult concepts for the average person to understand, before conversations start at City Council meetings. While you have done great job soliciting feedback from the public through surveys, holding open forums, meeting with groups, and communicating with the public, we can’t advocate for what we don’t understand. Other city governments have taken steps towards improving budget transparency through strategies that vary in level of effort required. Based on these strategies, please consider taking the following steps to enhance budget transparency:

1. In the short term, develop an easily digestible budget brief for the public. Consider providing open-source data for the public to use themselves, rather than working from a PDF budget document. Consider exploring how the Community Engagement Team can provide more information to the public about the budget, such as a spreadsheet.
   • Example: The City of Davis publishes a “Budget in Brief” of the adopted budget. This two-page document includes helpful infographics that feature how the budget is allocated and compares revenue and expenditures that improves understanding of future budgets.
2. In the medium term, work on creating a PowerBI Dashboard through Microsoft that includes, but is not limited to, the following key statistics:
   • a. Spending over time by department
   • b. Spending by department and by category, including by fund, within each department
   • c. Forecasted versus actual spending by department
   • d. Revenue versus expenditures
   • e. Liability claims
   • f. Example: The City of Cincinnati maintains a PowerBI budget dashboard that includes budget by department, and spending by fund, category, and over time.
3. In the long term, develop online interactive tools the public can use to participate in the budget process and provide feedback. This may include making your own budget tools, community participation opportunities early in the budget cycle (e.g. in January or February), etc.
   • Example: The LA City Controller has developed several dashboards that track budget, highlighting key statistics such as forecasted versus actual expenditures, liability claims, and spending on capital projects. The Controller’s office provides additional interactive elements such as a “Create Your Own Budget” tool.

We recognize that implementing these short, medium, and long term requests will necessitate staffing and resources. However, the cost is negligible compared to the net positive it adds to the budget process by creating a truly understandable budget for the public and city staffers alike. We advocate for these improvements to be implemented during the current budget season and appreciate your commitment to a clear and understandable city budget.

Sincerely,

Kay Crumb
President, Strong SacTown

Haley Di Pressi
Budget Working Group Lead, Strong SacTown

Cc: Mayor Kevin McCarty, CM Lisa Kaplan, CM Phil Pluckebaum, CM Rick Jennings, CM Mai Vang