San Diego council member wants to slash city's share of Petco Park expenses to shore up budget

A San Diego leader is calling into question the city’s decades-old contractual obligation to pay for millions of dollars in costs associated with the San Diego Padres’ use of Petco Park as he seeks to restore funding for local arts organizations in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said that he is pushing to slash the city’s share of Petco Park expenses while the budget is still in flux.

“The city is wrestling with a structural deficit and proposed cuts to services San Diegans depend on. I have a responsibility to examine every opportunity to protect what matters most to San Diegans. Doing so includes questioning subsidies the city provides to highly profitable enterprises,” Elo-Rivera told the Union-Tribune in an emailed statement late Friday. “I won't blindly subsidize a $3.9 billion enterprise's operations while we tell kids in this city that their library hours will be reduced and arts and culture programming will be eliminated. I have asked for an analysis of our options and we can make decisions on how to proceed once we know what those options are.”

The council member is taking aim at the city’s ballpark contract with the Padres, or what’s known as the Joint Use and Management Agreement, or JUMA. The agreement requires the city to pay for police services outside the venue, event traffic control and 70% of ballpark ownership costs. The Padres pay for game-day venue expenses, police services in the ballpark and traffic control service that exceeds the contract’s defined baseline.

In the upcoming fiscal year, San Diego expects to spend $18.5 million on Petco Park-related expenses and bring in a little more than $8 million in revenue, as accounted for in the Petco Park Fund in the draft budget. The fund deficit is balanced with $10.4 million in transfers from the Transient Occupancy Tax Fund.

Elo-Rivera’s statement builds on similar sentiments expressed in recent weeks as the city works toward adopting a budget for the new fiscal year. The budget, as currently proposed, eliminates $11.8 million in annual city grants to arts and culture organizations as part of Mayor Todd Gloria’s effort to close a pronounced deficit. Gloria recently released a revised draft budget with funding for some previously proposed cuts, but does not restore funding for local arts groups.

The remarks also follow the team’s announced sale to a new ownership group at a value of $3.9 billion.

It’s unclear, however, whether the city can legally adjust its contributions to the ballpark without amending the JUMA.

“The city has a longstanding contractual obligation to keep the public streets around Petco Park safe for 4 million visitors each year,” the San Diego Padres organization said in a statement provided to the Union-Tribune on Saturday. “The Padres pay for most police services associated with games and events, including all police and security inside the ballpark. Those costs have totaled $11 million over the last three years and nearly doubled after the City Council increased fees across the board for San Diegans.”

The organization maintains that the ballpark contributes substantially to the city’s overall health and believes that the council member’s approach is misguided.

“Petco Park annually generates almost $1 billion in economic impact, supports more than 13,500 jobs, and has contributed $23 million to the city's general fund through revenue sharing on non-baseball events over the last five years alone. The Padres have also invested more than $150 million over the last 14 years to make Petco Park the No. 1 ballpark in America, a significant return on a civic asset. Councilmember Elo-Rivera's attempts to distract from the City Council's chronic fiscal issues do not change the fact that the Padres are not responsible for the ($146 million) deficit,” the Padres statement added.

Signed in February 2000, the JUMA is the outgrowth of a stadium deal approved by city voters in November 1998. The contract memorializes the respective rights and obligations of the city and the Padres because they share ownership of the asset. San Diego owns a 70% stake of Petco Park, and the Padres own a 30% stake, although the organization’s ownership interest will transfer to the city when the joint-use agreement is terminated.

Under the contract, the Padres are entitled to use the ballpark for games and events for 125 days each calendar year. The Padres get to keep the revenue they bring in from baseball games, but must share 30% of other event revenue with the city. The parties also divvy up stadium upkeep costs, with San Diego required to pay 70% of routine ballpark operating expenses, up to a threshold that increases annually with the consumer price index.

The agreement also establishes what the Padres pay in fixed rent. The fixed rent for fiscal year 2025 was $905,631.31, according to information provided by the city.

San Diego is budgeting $18.5 million for ballpark expenses for the new fiscal year, or nearly $1 million less than what was budgeted for the current fiscal year. The expense amount includes an $8.5 million payment to repay the bond debt the city used to finance its portion of stadium construction costs. The debt was refinanced last year to reduce the annual payment, and is set to be retired on Oct. 15, 2031.

The city’s other largest expense is for police and fire-rescue services, which is budgeted at $9.8 million for the upcoming fiscal year. The sum reflects the total cost of police and fire-rescue services for the venue. The Padres’ reimbursement for police services inside the stadium is counted as other revenue in the Petco Park Fund.

In a budget hearing earlier this month, Elo-Rivera flagged as problematic the city’s budgeted transfer of $1.9 million from the Transient Occupancy Tax Fund to the Petco Park Fund to cover police and fire services outside of Petco Park during baseball games and special events. The line-item transfer to the Petco Park Fund increased $812,750 from the 2026 fiscal year. The transfer amount is greater because the Petco Park Fund had an available balance that was applied to some of the expenses in the prior year.

“I see folks who are down here begging to maintain funding for arts and culture organizations … and we’re going to increase support for a wildly profitable enterprise by 72%. I have a problem with that. I have a problem with what that says we’re prioritizing, who that says we’re prioritizing,” Elo-Rivera said at the May 4 budget hearing. “My point here is really simple. I think that we should be asking ourselves why the Padres, who just sold for $3.9 billion, are not paying for those services that they rely on to make all that money, and if we could instead use those resources to start to account for some of the cuts that the arts and culture community is about to feel based on the proposed budget. I think this is a matter of choice. It’s a values question.”

Noah Fleishman, a senior fiscal and policy analyst with the Office of the Independent Budget Analyst, hinted that there might be some wiggle room in the JUMA when it comes to the police services.

“The obligation for the city to cover those event costs is something that we might be able to discuss more with the (finance) department,” Fleishman said at the budget hearing, noting that the city would also need to review the potential impacts of not covering the costs.

The JUMA, however, states that the city is responsible for event traffic and public safety personnel outside the ballpark at a similar level of service provided during games at the now-demolished Qualcomm Stadium.

The matter also appeared settled in the city’s September 2007 letter to the Padres, which describes an agreement to “an equitable understanding for the payment of police and traffic control costs for Padres’ home games.” The letter sets the baseline for services and costs, and reiterates that the Padres do not need to reimburse the city for standard police services outside Petco Park or for baseline traffic control.

Council members are scheduled to take up the revised draft budget on Monday evening, with the ballpark subsidy seemingly on the table. The final budget discussion is scheduled for June 9.

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This story was originally published May 17, 2026 at 6:20 AM.