FY2025 Budget Comparison: Fairfield, Vallejo, and Vacaville

How do Solano County’s three largest cities allocate their general fund dollars? We compiled FY2024-25 adopted budget data for Fairfield, Vallejo, and Vacaville to make side-by-side comparison possible.

The Big Picture

All three cities share a common pattern: public safety dominates general fund spending, consuming roughly half of every discretionary dollar. Beyond that, the similarities start to diverge.

Vallejo is the only city spending more than it takes in from its general fund — a structural deficit that reflects ongoing fiscal pressures from its 2008 bankruptcy recovery and pension obligations.

Where the Money Goes

Public safety (police and fire) is the largest category for all three cities, but the shares differ:

• Vallejo: 51.9% of general fund to public safety — the highest share, driven in part by consent decree requirements and post-bankruptcy staffing rebuilds
• Fairfield: 47.3% — mid-range, reflecting a larger city footprint with more balanced service demands
• Vacaville: 47.9% — similar to Fairfield despite a smaller population

The implication: when residents ask “why can’t the city fix the roads / open the pool / hire more code enforcement,” the answer is often that half the budget is already committed before those conversations begin.

Where the Money Comes From

Sales tax is the top revenue source for all three cities, but reliance varies:

• Vacaville: 34.4% from sales tax — highest dependence, reflecting its role as a regional retail center
• Fairfield: 31.1% — also retail-dependent, with Travis Air Force Base driving commercial activity
• Vallejo: 28.9% — lower base sales tax share, supplemented by Measure B (a voter-approved sales tax add-on generating $15.2M)

Property tax is the second-largest source everywhere, ranging from 24.9% (Fairfield) to 25.3% (Vallejo). This relative uniformity makes sense — Proposition 13 constrains property tax growth statewide.

Revenue Per Capita

Normalizing for population reveals meaningful differences:

Fairfield collects and spends the most per resident. Vallejo collects the least but spends more than it takes in — a gap that must be closed through growth, cuts, or new revenue measures.

What This Data Doesn’t Show

Budget documents tell you what a city plans to spend, not what it actually spends. Actual expenditures often differ from adopted budgets due to mid-year adjustments, unfilled positions, and unexpected costs. The Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports (ACFRs), published after the fiscal year ends, provide the true accounting.

This comparison also excludes:

• Pension obligations: CalPERS unfunded liabilities are an additional cost pressure not fully visible in annual budget documents
• Capital budgets: Infrastructure investments funded through bonds, grants, and special funds
• Enterprise funds: Water, sewer, and other services that operate on fee revenue rather than general fund dollars
• Special districts: Fire protection, transit, and other services provided by entities outside city government

What Comes Next

We plan to add budget data for Benicia, Dixon, Suisun City, and Rio Vista as those cities publish their FY2025 adopted budgets. We’re also building a Public Funds Tracker that will make this data interactive and include historical trends.

If you have access to budget documents we’re missing, or if you spot an error in this data, please let us know.

Data sourced from adopted budget documents published by each city’s finance department. Population figures from California Department of Finance 2025 estimates. See the datasets page for more detail on methodology and sources.