Departmental Highlights

Snapshot: Appropriation & Staffing Changes from 2025 Budget

	2025 Budgeted	2026 Proposed	Net Change	Percent Change	Average Annual Rate of Change (2011-2025)	Inflation-adjusted Rate of Change (2011-2024)
Appropriations	$50,132,350	$36,187,606	-$13,944,744	-27.8%	16.3%	23.4%
Positions & FTEs	212	213	1	0.5%	0.3%	NA

• Like other ARPA-recipient departments, BACP is now seeing substantial budget decreases, with a -$13.9 million (-27.8%) cut from the previous year among the 2026 proposal’s steepest cuts.
• BACP’s total budgeted headcount only increased by one position, but several titles and positions changed, with three Projects Administrator positions eliminated, along with a Recovery Team Program Manager position and roughly a quarter of an FTE’s worth of budgeted Law Clerk hours. On the increase side of the ledger, the department picked up three Business Consultant positions and a Business Consultant Supervisor position, as well as an additional Senior Administrative Assistant position.
• Appropriation increases at BACP were relatively modest, with a roughly $673,000 increase in salaries and wages on payroll the largest jump. Other increases were all well below the $100,000 threshold.
• A standalone $8.3 million appropriated entirely from the Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle Fund for a Special Program Costs appropriation is BACP’s second-largest line item this year, following wages and salaries on payroll.
• BACP’s reserve balance appropriation, which covers grant funds not planned for expenditure during the current budget year, was cut by $9.2 million, an -88.5% decrease in grant funds held in reserve. A separate Operations and Maintenance Reserve line item of just over $3 million from the previous year was entirely eliminated.

Historical Context

The Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection’s budget increased dramatically after the infusion of federal pandemic relief funds beginning in the 2021 budget and reaching their peak in the 2022-2024 budget years. 

Like other ARPA-recipient departments, BACP is now seeing substantial budget decreases, with a -$13.9 million (-27.8%) cut from the previous year among the 2026 proposal’s steepest cuts. 

Historically, BACP’s budget increased at an average rate of 16.3% annually from 2011-2025. Much of that was driven by the pandemic relief funded years 2022-2024, however; from 2011-2021 the department’s growth rate was 7.9%, or an inflation-adjusted 5.4%, compared to a citywide average rate in the same timeframe of 5.5% annually (inflation-adjusted 3.4%). 

Over the past three complete budget years for which local fund actuals/encumbrances data is available, BACP spent on average 89.4% of its locally funded budget, compared to the citywide average 86.4% local fund spend.

Because much of the pandemic relief funding went to non-personnel appropriations, BACP’s staffing levels did not undergo as dramatic a fluctuation from 2022-2024, although headcount still increased somewhat. 

From 2011-2025, BACP’s budgeted positions increased at an average rate of 0.3% annually, compared to a citywide average annual change of -0.1%.

From February through September of 2025, the months for which the city released full-time position vacancy data, BACP averaged a 7.4% vacancy rate, compared to the citywide average of 11.2%. 

Seven of the department’s budgeted full-time positions were persistent vacancies, meaning that the same title/division/section/subsection combination was vacant for all eight months of available data:

Budgeted Position Changes

BACP’s total budgeted headcount only increased by one position, but several titles and positions changed, with three Projects Administrator positions eliminated, along with a Recovery Team Program Manager position and roughly a quarter of an FTE’s worth of budgeted Law Clerk hours. 

On the increase side of the ledger, the department picked up three Business Consultant positions and a Business Consultant Supervisor position, as well as an additional Senior Administrative Assistant position.

Appropriations

BACP is 92.5% locally-funded in this year’s budget proposal, up significantly from the previous year’s 62.4% as expiring federal grant funds are spent down. 62.6% of BACP’s budgeted 2026 appropriations come from the Corporate Fund, with a further 24.9% from the Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle Fund and relatively small amounts from other grant and administrative funds.

Fund	2025 Budgeted	2026 Proposed	Net Change from 2025	Percent Change from 2025	Percent of 2026 Recommended Funds
Corporate Fund	$22,443,676	$22,640,087	$196,411	0.9%	62.6%
Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle Fund	$8,441,697	$8,992,974	$551,277	6.5%	24.9%
Cable Local Origination Fund	$0	$1,479,545	$1,479,545	New Fund	4.1%
COVID-19 Grant Fund	$1,627,000	$1,187,000	-$440,000	-27.0%	3.3%
Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund	$10,519,977	$779,000	-$9,740,977	-92.6%	2.2%
Tax Increment Financing Administration Fund	$375,000	$375,000	$0	0.0%	1.0%
State Grant Fund	$625,000	$330,000	-$295,000	-47.2%	0.9%
Local Public and Private Grant Fund	$6,100,000	$250,000	-$5,850,000	-95.9%	0.7%
Grants Management Fund	$0	$154,000	$154,000	New Fund	0.4%

Largest Appropriations

As with most departments, personnel costs make up the bulk of BACP’s appropriations, with salaries and wages on payroll by far the largest expense category. 

$8.3 million appropriated entirely from the Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle Fund for a Special Program Costs appropriation made up BACP’s next-largest line item, followed by pass-through spending to delegate agencies. 

In 2024, the most recent complete budget year for which local fund actuals and encumbrances data is available, DEPT spent 91.4% of its locally-funded budget. 

Change from Previous Year

Appropriation increases at BACP were relatively modest, with a roughly $673,000 increase in salaries and wages on payroll the largest jump. Other increases were all well below the $100,000 threshold.

BACP’s reserve balance appropriation, which covers grant funds not planned for expenditure during the current budget year, was cut by $9.2 million, an -88.5% decrease in grant funds held in reserve. A separate Operations and Reserve line item of just over $3 million from the previous year was entirely eliminated.