SAN DIEGO — San Diego’s young people and their families could lose services they count on under Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposed budget, which would cut funding for libraries and parks and eliminate an office designed to promote youth success.

The budget proposal, released Wednesday, has drawn sharp criticism from advocates across the city, who say the plan is short-sighted and could dismantle the services that support and serve families and communities.

“The things that we are eliminating — library hours, parks and rec hours, services for young people and arts and culture — we’re eliminating them at such a severe level that we will not be getting those back,” said Patrick Stewart, the CEO of the Library Foundation SD. “And that’s a real concern.”

The mayor’s proposed $2.2 billion budget for the next fiscal year outlines tactics to close the city’s projected $146 million deficit — including a mix of securing new revenue and implementing worker furloughs and service cuts to a range of city departments.

The plan would cut funding for library hours by more than $2 million and eliminate a $1 million program that matches private donations to library branches. It would cut funding for recreation center hours by more than $5 million and aims to cut staff, including park rangers.

It would also get rid of the Office of Child and Youth Success, saving the city about $758,000, a small fraction of the looming deficit. The office helps city departments strengthen their children and youth programming and collaborate with community groups for youth resources.

The mayor’s “approach was to identify and prioritize the core city services that San Diegans rely on the most and forgo, for the time being, those services that don’t meet that threshold,” said the mayor’s spokesperson Dave Rolland in an email.

Advocates say they understand that the city is under financial constraints, but they urge the mayor and City Council members — who will be debating the mayor’s proposal in the coming weeks — to understand that funding for parks, libraries and youths is critical to San Diego communities.

The San Diego Parks Foundation works with the Department of Parks and Recreation to hold programming in city parks, including its summer “Parks After Dark” series that brings music, crafts and free meals to San Diego families, largely in underserved communities in Districts 4, 8 and 9 and in Linda Vista.

“We are advocating for continued rec center hours … in the districts where we were involved because those neighborhood and community parks have been neglected for so long,” said Michel Anderson, a founding board member of the San Diego Parks Foundation.

The mayor said his budget — which prioritizes public safety, homelessness and transportation funding — aligns with what city residents want, based on surveys submitted online by more than 10,000 residents.

Under the proposed budget, funding for public safety would increase, though the city would save $9 million by not filling some open police positions.

But advocates from Youth Will, which aims to boost civic engagement among the city’s young people, say that prioritizing public safety doesn’t always translate well to youths, especially in communities of color.

“I think leadership thinks that enforcement will support young people, but that’s just not the reality,” said Liliana Soriano Garista, the organization’s director of policy.

Youth Will also works closely with the city’s Office of Child and Youth Success.

That office launched in 2022, but it has already lost support from the city in recent years. Last year, its three-person staff was consolidated under the Library Department, which left it without direct access to city leadership, and its executive director position was cut. Now it would be eliminated entirely.

Rolland says the office’s current $758,000 budget, which covers both staff pay and non-personnel expenses, would revert back to the city’s general fund to help fund hours and services such as the library’s “Do Your Homework” program, which provides homework support to kindergarten through eighth-grade students.

But it’s unclear what would happen to the Youth Commission and the child and youth plan — both overseen by the Office of Child and Youth Success.

The child and youth plan, a two-year strategy for how the city can best serve young people, was updated last fall and focuses on education and career pathways, economic and workforce opportunities, youth empowerment, engaging activities and child care.

Rolland concedes that the plan would face setbacks under the mayor’s budget proposal.

“Many of the library programs, parks programming and early-learning services that families rely on will continue at some level of service in this budget. However, what changes is the dedicated cross-departmental coordination capacity,” Rolland said. “Grant-seeking and county partnership functions lose a dedicated staff home, and implementation pace at the coordination level will slow this cycle.”

The Youth Commission, a city advisory body that aims to bridge the gap between young people in San Diego and the city’s leadership, has already faced setbacks of its own. In January, it met for the first time in more than a year after repeated struggles to draw enough participation to function.

Sadie Wheeler, an 18-year-old senior at University City High School and the commission’s current chair, said the group has met a few times since January and is still in the early stages of establishing its goals and priorities.

The panel has created a budget committee, which was meeting Saturday to discuss the mayor’s proposed spending plan and outline a statement to the City Council about why the Office of Child and Youth Success matters.

It has been difficult for the commission to meet quorum, she said, and some commissioners — herself included — are leaving San Diego for college later this year.

But Wheeler says the proposed elimination of the youth office worries her. The commissioners work closely with the office and its program coordinator, Tara Ryan, and losing that support could halt their early progress.

“It really does take someone who’s dedicated to it and who really cares about making an impact on everyone,” Wheeler said.

In a statement, Councilmember Raul Campillo, who helped lead the effort to establish the office in 2021, said he thinks the council can find the money to restore it — “while also honoring our mandate to residents and spending our dollars on core city services that protect families and children. Right now, kids need safe routes to school, lifeguards monitoring beaches, and fire fighters and police officers standing at the ready.”

Advocates for youths and for the library and parks departments are turning to City Council members over the coming weeks to encourage them to support funding for the services they care about. The mayor’s revised budget proposal will be released in early May.

And a coalition of community groups, including Youth Will, Viet Voices and the Children First Collective, has formed to stand as a united front for city services that support youths and families.

With the proposed spending plan, Jean-Huy Tran, who leads Viet Voices, worries what San Diego could look like for the next generation, and hopes the mayor takes heed of what it needs.

“He doesn’t realize how not funding youth will have a long-term effect,” he said. “How does that influence people in the future and their livelihood?”

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