Leveraging Idle Special Funds 2026
The Controller’s Office identified $80.4 million sitting idle in 177 special funds, out of the City’s total 612 special funds. Idle funds are funds with no activity for at least two years. This report analyzes special funds as of June 30, 2025.
REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
Special Funds are different from the General Fund: Special Funds can only be used for specific purposes. (The General Fund can be used for anything.) Special Funds sitting idle means that there are specific purposes that the City could have been spending on but wasn’t.
The $80.4 million in unspent funds can be spent for the following functions:
- $11.9 million for community safety
- $10.9 million for economic development
- $9.7 million for parks
- $9.5 million for arts, culture, or tourism
- $7.8 million for housing and homelessness
- $7.1 million for streets
- $6.6 million for sanitation and environment
- $5.7 million for social services
- $4.3 million for transportation
- $1.5 million for public works
- $5.4 million for "other"
Previously, the Controller’s Office reported $73 Million in idle funds, in 2023. The Office was unable to provide an updated report in 2024 and 2025 due to budget cuts and staffing shortages.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Short-Term: Use funds or transfer to Reserve Fund as soon as possible
- Explore the feasibility of tapping the idle funds under the control of each department, as a one-time source of funding for the upcoming FY 2026-27 budget season
- Repay Reserve Fund loans owed by idle funds with adequate available balances to cover their loans
- Initiate the escheatment process for old, dormant, and inactive funds, to enable transfers to the Reserve Fund
- Develop spending plans to program or reallocate available balances in idle funds determined not eligible for transfer to the Reserve Fund
- Long-term: Reduce the number of Idle Special Funds through policy change
- Develop a policy for automatically disencumbering Idle Fund encumbrances three years or older
- Consider a policy for incorporating a sunset clause for new Special Funds, after which any remaining funds could be transferred to the Reserve Fund or be returned to originating sources
- Create a new Departmental Special Fund Creation Form to be completed by Departments to summarize the intent and nature of a new Special Fund being requested
- Develop a policy to closeout expired and obsolete grant Idle Funds, transfer any leftover funds to the Reserve Fund, especially when insufficient documentation is available to keep them open