Pomona spent months warning residents that youth funding could gut public safety. Then voters approved Measure Z, cutting the city’s annual youth funding requirement by approximately $6.9 million. But what happened next was not complicated.
The city restored funding for 24 vacant Police Department positions at a combined salary and benefit cost of $4,117,822.
Police now have a $91.15 million budget. Pomona still expects to spend more money than it receives.
A draft first quarter budget preview lists $91,146,214 for police and a projected General Fund deficit of $7,946,475. The Citizens Oversight Committee is scheduled to review the figures Thursday, October 15.
Police account for 51.1 percent of the city’s amended General Fund spending plan. More than half.
That is not unprecedented. Police represented approximately 51.6 percent of adopted General Fund spending in fiscal year 2022 to 2023. But this year’s increase arrived immediately after the city reduced the amount of money it was required to send to youth programs.
The budget adopted on May 26 allocated $87,028,392 to police. Total General Fund spending was $181,904,077, putting the police share at approximately 47.8 percent.
That police allocation was already above the $80,970,080 adopted for fiscal year 2025 to 2026.
The May staff report blamed the increase primarily on salaries and benefits, pension liabilities, the Homeless Encampment Action Response Team and costs allocated across city departments. Then came Measure Z.
Measure Y, approved by voters in November 2024, required Pomona to send an increasing share of unrestricted General Fund revenue to its Children and Youth Fund. For fiscal year 2026 to 2027, the city budgeted approximately $9.2 million for that transfer. City Hall did not like that number.
Before the June election, the city warned that Measure Y would force deeper cuts to police, fire, parks, streets and other services unless voters changed the funding formula. Voters approved Measure Z on June 2.
Meanwhile, that bright—shiny new public safety panic City Hall is currently shilling? The data was already moving in the exact opposite direction while they were busy fearmongering.
According to the city’s Office of Violence Prevention and Neighborhood Wellbeing, general shootings plummeted 24 percent in 2024 and dipped another 9 percent in 2025. Gun homicides took a massive, 53 percent nosedive in 2024 and slid another 14 percent the year after. Overall homicides? Dropped 25 percent in 2025.
The notable detail is that all of this occurred before voters passed Measure Z, and before officials in Pomona allocated $4.12 million to fund vacant department positions.
While this does not definitively prove that increasing law enforcement budgets is ineffective, it indicates that public narratives regarding rising crime rates contrasted sharply with the city's own statistical data showing a decrease in violence.
Measure Z tied the youth transfer to 10 percent of Bradley Burns sales tax revenue. The city estimated the new transfer at approximately $2.3 million. That is approximately $6.9 million less than the amount budgeted under Measure Y.
Measure Z did not give that difference to police. It did not earmark the money for any particular department. It simply reduced what Pomona was required to transfer to the youth fund, leaving more General Fund money available for everything else.
Money already transferred to the youth fund remained restricted for youth purposes, according to the city’s August report.
In its August 3 budget amendment report, city staff directly connected the passage of Measure Z to restoring funding for 32 vacant positions. Twenty four of them were in the Police Department.
The position schedule lists 14 police officers, three jailers, one police dispatcher, three senior police dispatchers, two police records specialists and one senior police records specialist. The combined salary and benefit cost was $4,117,822.
That amount exactly matches the difference between the police budget adopted in May and the amount shown in the current draft preview.
The positions were vacant and had been left unfunded. These were not 24 employees who had been laid off and brought back to work. Restoring the money gave the department the ability to fill the positions.
The city’s paperwork does not establish that all 24 positions have actually been filled. Measure Y placed real pressure on the General Fund. But it was never the only reason Pomona was running a deficit.
The August report also pointed to labor agreements, the Los Angeles County fire contract, insurance increases and programs that had previously been supported by other funding sources. The May budget projected $170,530,134 in General Fund revenue and $181,904,077 in spending. That left an $11,373,943 deficit.
The draft preview now projects $170,538,069 in revenue and $178,484,544 in spending. The deficit decreased by approximately $3.43 million. It did not disappear.
Total General Fund spending fell by approximately $3.42 million from the amount adopted in May. Police funding went the other way, increasing by more than $4.1 million.
These are annual budget allocations, not amounts already spent. Through September 30, the preview lists $18,680,483 in police expenditures, approximately 20 percent of the amended police budget.
The two page preview does not connect the additional police money to response times, crime rates, case clearance rates or any other measure showing what residents receive for the increase.
It shows what the city intends to spend. It does not show what that spending will accomplish.
City staff warns that the numbers are preliminary and may change before the full first quarter report reaches the City Council.
The Citizens Oversight Committee meets at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Chuck Bader Conference Room. Pomona warned that youth funding threatened public safety. Voters reduced the youth requirement. The city restored $4.1 million for vacant police positions.
And after all that, Pomona is still nearly $8 million in the hole.
