Fresno leaders approve $2.3 billion budget, with adjustments for roads, sidewalks and parks

The Fresno City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a $2.3 billion budget for the 2026 fiscal year, a record-breaking high once again despite some decreasing revenues. 

A unique aspect of this year’s budget is Mayor Jerry Dyer’s $100 million bond for paving roads at an accelerated pace over the next couple years. He originally intended for the entire sum to be spent on only repaving roads. Now, $25 million of the bond program will go toward other types of infrastructure, like sidewalks and medians. 

“Although we do want the vast majority of that money to be used to pave streets, because we know those costs are going up — well, so is the cost of sidewalks,” Dyer said at a news conference after the budget’s approval Tuesday. “So we want to make sure we’re doing that as well — so $25 million set aside so that they can do other infrastructure projects.” 

Fresno’s budget process was quieter than usual this year. The city council only logged 82 funding requests after June budget hearings, at least 20 less than past budget cycles. Fewer members of the public came to speak during public comment during budget hearings the first week of June. Additionally, the budget’s passage this time was slightly earlier than usual, too.

Of all 82 budget motions, Dyer said he was able to partially or fully include 47 of them in a revised proposal, accounting for about $14.8 million he and his staff had to move around. Most of the readjustments came from special revenue and general fund resources, Dyer said. 

The second-term mayor reconciled the budget in meetings with individual councilmembers “last week, as well as Saturday,” Dyer said, adding that he tried to gauge their district’s needs in those meetings. 

Those needs appeared to be met: The Fresno City Council talked about the revised $2.3 billion budget proposal on Tuesday for a total of 14 minutes. 

Those individual meetings are a shift from a longtime practice for the mayor to meet with a committee of councilmembers over the budget. That practice is not happening anymore, following scrutiny in a 2023 Fresnoland investigation and an ongoing lawsuit. 

Dyer made room for about $15 million in funding requests

Most of the budget motions made last week, and what ended up in the budget were funding requests for parks and infrastructure. 

Councilmember Annalisa Perea initially motioned for $4.3 million to complete the first construction phase of Quigley Park. She ended up getting $1.67 million instead, the largest item to come out of reconciliation. 

Councilmember Nelson Esparza made a motion last week for a left turn phasing signal at Van Ness and Clinton avenues. His request for $1.64 million was fully granted by Dyer. 

The full list of reconciliation items was released to the public Monday evening.

Dyer also put a few budget motions aside for consideration in February. One of them was Councilmember Mike Karbassi’s motion for $120,000 to create a municipal transparency and election integrity unit at the City Attorney’s Office. 

Karbassi told Fresnoland last week that the unit would enforce current election laws. He told Fresnoland via text last week that he would consider modifying city election laws if Dyer included money for the election integrity unit in his budget. 

Dyer ended his Tuesday budget news conference with a bible reference, equating Jesus with the work done by city officials on the budget over the last few weeks. 

“There’s a story in the Bible about how Jesus was going to feed the 5,000 with two fish and five loaves of bread,” Dyer said. “And we were able to do it. So I want to say thank you to this council for making that work.”