Sacramento council to cut equity ambassador program to balance budget
As the Sacramento City Council enters the final couple weeks of budget deliberations, it must navigate the remaining $1.8 million in cuts required to balance the $66 million deficit.
The latest controversial cut is to the city’s community ambassador program, which provides a stipend to 18 active community members to promote city services and foster neighborhood connections between linguistically diverse populations and historically underrepresented communities.
Community Engagement Manager Lynette Hall said last year that the program is about “bridging gaps” and “ensuring that all Sacramento residents, regardless of background or language, have the opportunity to access vital information and resources.”
The equity initiative, which was launched as a pilot in 2021 and later expanded, pays ambassadors $6,000 per year to serve as a liaison between the city and their respective communities. The program costs the city $108,000 per year.
The city is looking at cutting these stipends, which could end the program unless the volunteers are interested in doing the same work for free.
More than a dozen residents turned out to a meeting Tuesday night to encourage council members to reconsider cutting the program, which they said is an invaluable resource in reaching underserved communities, particularly those whose first language is not English.
“We cannot afford to balance the city’s ledger by cutting the very lifeline that connects City Hall to our most vulnerable residents,” said Mark Freeman, a project manager for The Sacramento Observer newspaper. “The community ambassador program is not a luxury, it’s a vital infrastructure for equity.”
The program wasn’t on the chopping block until the council directed staff to restore $1.8 million in funding for other things, including a teen summer internship program, park maintenance positions and youth violence prevention grants. That meant council members had to come up with a financing plan to cover those restorations.
Councilmember Eric Guerra proposed the cut to ambassador stipends alongside commission meeting reductions last week to fund restored programs.
Councilmember Mai Vang was against sacrificing the ambassadors and again advocated to cut some long-vacant police department positions which could free up millions of dollars in the budget.
“We talk about protecting core city services, but you’re not going to be able to implement some of these city services if our diverse community can’t access them and doesn’t understand what’s going on,” Vang said. “That’s the reason why I see this program and the stipend for these community ambassadors a critical component of what we do here at the city.”
Other council members recognized the value of the program but opted to approve the suggested cuts.
“It’s very hard for me to go to community members and explain why someone might be losing a job, and then we’re paying stipends,” Councilmember Caity Maple said.
The council ultimately voted 7-2 to move forward with the budget as recommended, with Vang and Councilmember Lisa Kaplan opposing.
“These are all terrible choices for everybody, we’ve had to make terrible choices three years in a row,” Mayor Kevin McCarty said.
