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The Mountain View City Council is expected to adopt a balanced budget next week for the 2026-2027 fiscal year, despite flattening revenues and rising costs, a trend that has defined the city’s financial outlook for the past couple years.
Mountain View is planning to close out the current 2025-2026 fiscal year with a roughly $1.9 million operating balance, slightly more than the $1.8 million projected in February. However, the city’s fortunes are looking less rosy going forward.
Mountain View expects to close out the 2026-2027 fiscal year with an operating balance of $150,000, according to Derek Rampone, the city’s finance and administrative services director.
“Overall, we continue to project revenue growth, but definitely at a slower pace than the city has experienced in many prior years,” Rampone told the City Council at a June 9 meeting
The city’s general fund revenues are expected to grow to $207.6 million, a $11.9 million increase from the 2025-2026 adopted budget, Rampone said. As in previous years, the city is seeing limited growth in its major revenue sources, including property taxes, sales tax and other local taxes.
“Expenditure increases are expected to grow faster than revenues, which creates an ongoing budget pressure,” Rampone said.
Expenditures are expected to hit $217.7 million in 2026-2027. Although this figure is roughly $10.1 million higher than the projected revenues, it doesn’t include a $10.3 million “vacancy factor.” This refers to savings Mountain View expects to see, including from empty staff positions.
“It is typical for expenditures to come in below budget due to personnel vacancy savings and expenditure savings within supplies and service accounts,” according to the city staff report.
Mountain View projects that it will begin to see modest deficits as costs start to outpace revenue in the 2027-2028 fiscal year, Rampone said. A positive balance sheet is not anticipated until 2030-2031, when the city is projected to close out the year with an operating balance of $1.5 million. The gain would mostly be from pension cost reductions – but even that is not certain, Rampone said.
A pitch for a revenue measure
While Mountain View’s budget is stable for the next fiscal year, more money will be needed to fund projects identified as high priorities for the community, according to City Manager Kimbra McCarthy. Some of those projects include major street, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, investments in parks and open space and affordable housing initiatives.
“We just simply do not have all the money that we need to do all of these things,” McCarthy said at the council meeting.
Two years ago, Mountain View voters approved a revenue measure that raised the property transfer tax on residential and commercial properties that sell for more than $6 million. The tax generated $5.1 million this fiscal year, substantially less than the $9.5 million expected when the council adopted the 2025-2026 budget. The city staff report estimates that the property transfer tax will generate approximately $8.2 million in 2026-2027.
To shore up more money, the city is looking at a potential tax measure for the November ballot. Last month, Mayor Emily Ann Ramos described the initiative as a possible general obligation bond measure. The City Council is expected to discuss the initiative at its June 23 meeting.
City Council weighs in on budget
When reviewing the 2026-2027 budget earlier this month, council members reacted favorably, providing only a few suggestions ahead of the final budget adoption on June 23.
Council member Lucas Ramirez proposed minor modifications, like increasing funding by $5,000-$10,000 to cover more multicultural engagement events and opportunities. The recommendation received support from other council members.
Council members also weighed in after a public commenter suggested using revenue from the city’s utility users tax – a 3% tax assessed on telecommunications, electricity and gas services – to help fund future sustainability initiatives.
“While gas gets more expensive, we can utilize that money to help people do things that reduce their greenhouse gasses locally, like get a heat pump or buy an electric car,” Council member Pat Showalter said.
Overall, Council members did not tinker much with the budget, which includes several new staff positions, totaling $1.7 million, according to the staff report. Those additions include full-time positions for a firefighter/paramedic ($391,000), assistant city attorney ($368,700), deputy city manager ($361,000) and an information technology analyst ($266,100). It also includes part-time positions for a transportation planner ($151,700) and principal planner ($147,200), as well as hourly stagehand wages ($150,000).
Crews extinguish half-acre vegetation fire near Shoreline Park in Mountain ViewJune 15, 2026 2:33 pm