Jaden Urban reports on some different ideas the city is considering to keep their books balanced.

On Monday, the City of Reno held a budget workshop, looking into the 2025-2026 fiscal year.

Budget issues are impacting several jurisdictions across northern Nevada.

The City of Reno is projecting a $25 million shortfall for the '25-'26 fiscal year.

"Unlike the federal government, we do not run a deficit budget. We always make revenue and expenses match," said Jackie Bryant, Reno City Manager. "So, for the upcoming fiscal year our biggest challenge is in the General Fund. The General Fund is predominantly supported by the consolidated taxes, which is basically sales tax, property tax, and franchise fees."  

The City Manager says they found a way to help shore up more than half of that deficit.

The city says they are looking into defunding about 20 vacant or unfilled job positions.

This and other efforts are expected to help save the city about $16 million.

"The difference is money coming from capital improvement projects we will not be doing, from maintenance projects we will not be doing, as well as from our fleet fund and workers compensation, where we fund in a little bit of excess to require that we ensure that we have an adequate force," Bryant said. "So, we won't be able to do those this year."

Bryant believes this fiscal budget won't have too much of an impact on residents, but the future is uncertain.

"We have tried really hard in building this budget, not to have a significant impact to the public just yet," she said. "It remains to be seen. We're going to be monitoring it and we'll be reporting it to council throughout the year."  

As we reported last week, some of the board and commissions for the city are on a 90-day staffing freeze.

Bryant says they will have to look deeply and want to hear from the public on which ones they find the most valuable.

"So, what we're doing is we're going to take 90 days to assess whether we are doing what the public finds most valuable and we will have to reallocate how we do that work after the 90 days based on the feedback we get," she said.

The freeze won't save the city any money, it will allow them to decide on where they will allocate staff and which ones could be removed for good.  

A final decision on the budget could be made May 21, when the Reno City Council plans to hold a public hearing on the budget.