SAN JOSE — The city of San Jose can avoid major service cutbacks and layoffs in the upcoming fiscal year — but the coronavirus-spawned recession must not worsen or reductions will be back on the table, Mayor Sam Liccardo said Thursday in proposing a $4.1 billion city budget.
“We are at an unprecedented moment” related to the coronavirus, the recession, and racial injustice, Mayor Liccardo said during a news briefing Thursday to present his final budget message for the fiscal year that begins in July and ends in June 2021.
A new endeavor, the Office of Racial Equity, would be established in San Jose, the mayor said in his budget message.
For now, however, huge cutbacks will be held at bay in San Jose, Liccardo said in an interview Thursday with this news organization.
“There are no layoffs of full-time employees in this budget,” Mayor Liccardo said in the interview. “Some part-time employees have had furloughs, which will feel a lot like layoffs to those folks. But we are not laying off full-time employees.”
Still, it’s clear San Jose has tightened the purse strings for the fiscal 2020-2021 city budget.
“We are eliminating vacant positions,” Liccardo said in the interview. “Hiring has stopped.”
The overarching challenge for the city is the severe economic downturn brought on by coronavirus-linked shutdowns of businesses that began three months ago in mid-March, a slump not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. City officials believe the recession could persist for at least the next few months.
“It is the worst recession in a century,” Liccardo said in the interview.
