The Santa Barbara City Council on Tuesday approved its $667 million overall budget for 2024-25 — but not before another long speech from a council member about priorities.

This time, it was Councilwoman Alejandra Gutierrez, who chastised some of her colleagues for not funding two police officer, a sergeant and range master positions.

Gutierrez, during an eight-minute speech, told a story of how a teenager was shot and killed on the streets on the Eastside near where she lives, and the council should show some guts and fund law enforcement.

“It is easy to vote and give money to things that are popular and feel good to the heart,” Gutierrez said. “What is really hard is to actually create balance and create a just system, especially in the world we live in.”

Gutierrez said the council should not be surprised if the budget cuts prevent law enforcement from performing their job in the best possible way, Gutierrez said.

“Next time you run, don’t run with that idea, or give that speech saying, ‘I will provide safety to our children in our community,’ and then vote on issues that really don’t reflect that,” Gutierrez said.

The council unanimously approved the budget, the details of which already had been decided last Wednesday. At that meeting, the council decided to fund libraries, restore after-school programs and fund fire positions, but not the law enforcement positions.

There were multiple individual votes on several items last week, but the vote regarding the police positions were Mayor Randy Rowse and council members Eric Friedman, Oscar Gutierrez, Meagan Harmon and Mike Jordan. Gutierrez and Kristen Sneddon supported it.

Tuesday’s vote was a mere formality after all the votes and discussion, except for Gutierrez’s comments.

The city is facing a $1.1 million budget deficit in its $220 million general fund in 2024, and a $4.8 million shortfall in 2025.

The council opted to take money from its contingency reserve fund to pay for the programs.

Council budget sessions are typically low-key affairs, but Sneddon injected some excitement into the discussion when she said the finance department was not being transparent with its budget numbers.

She said the financial estimates were too conservative and that a budget should reflect a community’s priorities. On top of that, she said the budget projections were at least $10 million off. Her comments set off some of her colleagues, who worked quickly both publicly and privately to defend city staff and quash public concerns.

“This has been a really long, and particularly contentious, and very, very tough set of budget deliberations,” Rowse said.

Among the more significant decisions on Wednesday was the council decision to spend $600,000 to open up libraries more days of the week.

Under pressure from library activists, the council agreed to restore funding to the downtown and Eastside Santa Barbara public libraries during the budget vote. Right now, they are open five and six days a week, respectively, and will move to six and seven days a week.