The Stockton City Council on Tuesday approved midyear budget adjustments for fiscal year 2025-26, advancing time-sensitive projects while delaying other spending decisions for further review.
Chief Financial Officer Gilbert Garcia told councilmembers the city ended the previous fiscal year with a roughly $3 million surplus after fully funding its working capital reserve, equal to about 1% of the general fund. Departments initially submitted about $12 million in midyear requests, which were narrowed to about $3.2 million in general fund proposals and an additional $3.3 million from other funding sources.
“We focused on the city council goals and priorities as described in the city council goal-setting meeting, so expanding public safety, expanding activities for youth and infrastructure investment,” Garcia said. “In addition, we have legal mandates that we’re required to comply with, and we also look, to the extent possible, at non-general fund funding sources where available.”
Among the proposals Garcia highlighted was $2.2 million for the Buckley Cove dredging project, the highest-cost item on the list. Garcia said the funding plan includes about $1.5 million from non-general fund sources, including a community facilities district maintenance fund, and a roughly $500,000 loan from the general fund.
The second request Garcia noted was a one-time allocation of $750,000 to purchase and install a new modular building to replace the police department’s existing firing range house. The funding would come from Measure W, a one-quarter-cent transaction and use tax adopted by Stockton voters in November 2004 and dedicated to police and fire personnel and services.
Additionally, $475,000 from the general fund was requested for the legal services budget. City staff said the proposed increase was due to increased investigations and the need for outside counsel services.
In 2025, councilmembers authorized several investigations into each other, including a $50,000 taxpayer-funded investigation that cleared Vice Mayor Jason Lee of legal wrongdoing in January related to his involvement in the “Wild ‘N Out” show. In November 2025, Mayor Christina Fugazi also moved to create a temporary ad hoc committee consisting of herself and District 1 Councilmember Michele Padilla to look into allegations she made that Lee was hostile toward staff.
At the time, a spending limit for the committee’s use of taxpayer money on the investigation was not publicly disclosed, and it is unclear whether one has been set. No updates on the status of the investigation have been provided by Fugazi or Padilla.
Garcia also said staff requested $417,989 in funding from Measure M, a one-quarter-cent transaction and use tax approved by Stockton voters in 2016 and dedicated to city recreation and library programs, services and facilities, to repair bleachers at Louis Park. A recent inspection found the existing bleachers were unsafe, did not meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements and should be demolished.
Other park requests included $145,000 from the general fund for lights at the softball field at Fritz Grupe Park. After recent upgrades and the installation of new lighting controls, staff found that approximately 30% of the lamps were no longer functioning. Staff also requested $1.22 million from the general fund for citywide park maintenance.
Debate over whether to fund police substations
The discussion grew contentious as councilmembers debated whether to fund two new police substations: a $50,000 general fund request for a Kentfield Road site in District 2 and a $141,000 general fund request for a Weston Ranch site in District 6. Staff said the Kentfield Road substation would have an ongoing cost of $48,000, while the Weston Ranch substation would cost $80,000 annually.
Lee, who has been an advocate for establishing new police substations to improve community policing, said the city has had multiple shootings and homicides recently and has seen more violent crime since the November 2025 mass shooting.
“I don’t want to get into the politics of it all, but I see this and then I look at Grupe Park pickleball, $281,000 we assigned today, Zencity, $189,000, and then when we talk about the price of saving lives or creating a safer community for our taxpayers, that we know they’ve been demanding and we can’t get $141,000 approved,” Lee said.
Lee also noted the $475,000 increase in legal expenses, up from $250,000, and said the legal budget is “ballooning out of control because we had a lot of non-necessary investigations that were approved by this council, and we were going backwards as it related to being very responsible safeguards for taxpayer resources.”
Padilla said she did not understand how the council could justify establishing new substations when the police department has a shortage of officers and said the city still needed to clean up parks and provide youth services.
“Our chief told us at the last meeting that there is a potential for 30 retirees. Not that there will be but there’s a potential,” Padilla said. “When we are already short, we have retirees, and in order for this to be facilitated in either two or six, we are going to be pulling from other resources … how can we satisfy your need with those statistics?”
Lee fired back, noting that a 17-year-old died in the parking lot where staff had proposed putting a substation, and told Padilla, “When your son gets murdered like my brother did, you’ll understand the value of a life is more than anything that you just talked about.”
District 2 Councilmember Mariela Ponce, appearing to read from a prepared statement, said she believed in substations but was concerned about remarks Police Chief Stanley McFadden made at a prior meeting. He said adding substations would require shifting existing resources and that staffing constraints could affect operations, with personnel likely pulled from specialized units that handle quality-of-life issues.
“I don’t believe that we have the staff for those police substations,” Ponce said. “We’re basically adding new officers and we’re taking them away from other departments, and I don’t think that’s right.”
Substations can be opened, but police staffing challenges remain
McFadden said substations could help strengthen community relationships but emphasized that maintaining adequate staffing to respond to emergency calls remains the police department’s top priority.
“I want to be visible everywhere, but we’ve got to be able to respond to where the services are at all times,” McFadden said. “Wherever, mayor and council, you guys vote to have us, we will be there, we will be professional, we will be engaged and we will get the job done.”
The police chief added that substations would help mitigate crime and address concerns in areas where they are established, but they would force him to reallocate resources, which is not new to him. He noted that during his first year in Stockton, the police department needed to pull officers out of the investigations unit to respond to 911 calls.
“We’ve been slowly building back our investigative unit so we can bring closure to our victims and their families,” McFadden said.
Residents offered mixed opinions during public comment, with some urging investment in substations and others questioning their necessity or cost-effectiveness compared to deploying more officers on patrol.
Facing a roughly $270,000 gap between available general fund dollars and proposed spending, the council ultimately voted 7-0 to approve only time-sensitive items, all funded from the general fund, including $500,000 for the Buckley Cove dredging project, $475,000 for legal expenses tied to investigations, $150,000 for the city’s Fourth of July celebration and $35,000 for improvements at Souza Park Pool.
Other general fund requests, including several district-specific projects and proposals such as police substations, will be sent back to the council’s budget committee for further analysis and recommendations.
City officials said the remaining items will return to the full council at a later date for consideration.
Record reporter Hannah Workman covers news in Stockton and San Joaquin County. She can be reached at hworkman@recordnet.com or on Twitter @byhannahworkman. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.
This article originally appeared on The Record: Stockton OKs spending on some projects, delays police substations
Reporting by Hannah Workman, The Stockton Record / The Record
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