Mayoral threats, tiny homes and budget deficits: Sacramento’s top 2025 stories
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- Sacramento City Hall faced leadership turnover while operating under interim management
- Council approved a $1.67B budget, cut 80+ vacancies and avoided immediate layoffs
- City expands tiny homes, shifts homeless strategy amid shrinking state funding
Sacramento City Hall had a year of transition in 2025.
Mayor Kevin McCarty and two new council members started their terms. The city operated the entire year under an interim city manager following the chaotic conclusion to Howard Chan’s tenure. Along the way, Sacramento lost two other major leaders: its city attorney and director for the Office of Public Safety and Accountability.
The Sacramento Bee reported these changes as well as providing readers with coverage of the city’s ongoing budget deficit and evolving strategy to address homelessness. Other stories that caught Bee readers’ attention involved City Council conflicts and the controversial history of a newly hired city official.
Here are some of the most-read city of Sacramento stories of 2025.
5. Ongoing budget deficits
The city narrowly avoided using layoffs to balance its budget for the first time since 2013.
The City Council approved its $1.67 billion spending plan in June with several fee increases and the elimination of more than 80 vacant positions. Unlike previous proposals, the budget did not lead to city layoffs —a seldom-used strategy in Sacramento’s history.
Still, the city remains in a structural deficit with a shortfall projected that could potentially reach $90 million by 2030. City leaders continue to caution that future deficits could lead to tougher choices, including implementing layoffs and larger reductions to departments.
4. New homelessness priorities
Throughout the year, Sacramento leaders have pointed to tiny homes as a key piece addressing its homelessness crisis.
Up until now, the region has sparsely used the miniature dwellings to house homeless people and relied mostly on congregate shelters and its motel shelter program. But under proposals unveiled in September, the city plans to nearly double the amount of tiny home units offered. Most of these will be charged at a monthly fee — a rare policy in the U.S.
Sacramento is banking on the model as a cheaper and faster path to results. The strategy is shaped, in part, by shrinking state homeless funding.
3. Mayor threatens councilmember
In August, The Sacramento Bee broke the news that McCarty had threatened to put homeless encampments in a councilmember’s district after she voted against his proposal.
The verbal remark, directed at Councilmember Mai Vang, had come weeks earlier during a meeting where the council discussed McCarty’s measure to prohibit homeless people from sleeping on City Hall grounds. Vang said McCarty approached her following a vote on the measure and said: “Next time, I’m going to make sure there are encampments around the (Sam and Bonnie) Pannell Community Center.”
In an email exchange after the meeting, Vang said McCarty had “crossed the line of professional decorum and mutual respect.” McCarty responded with an apology and expressed regret.
2. Largest settlement in Sacramento history
Earlier this year, Sacramento culminated a nearly three-year legal battle about water meters by receiving the largest settlement in city history.
The $13.4 million settlement stemmed from a 2022 lawsuit in which the city argued Teichert Construction had used improper materials and did not meet contract specifications to install thousands of water meters. Though the water meter function won’t affect bills for property owners, the city has said it will face high costs for replacement or repair sooner than intended.
1. Controversial hire at animal shelter
Sacramento hired Staycee Dains to help lead its sole animal shelter in May despite a string of substantiated complaints from her tenure in Los Angeles.
The complaints, deemed credible by a third-party investigation, detailed that Dains made derogatory remarks about Black employees, threatened staff, targeted workers without cause and violated department policy while the general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services.
In Sacramento, the revelations sparked renewed criticism and calls for her removal from animal welfare advocates.
This story was originally published December 29, 2025 at 12:00 PM.
