In the city’s Open Budget - Expenses file (57,015 General Fund line items, FY2015 to FY2027), the Fire Department’s approved budget rose from $65.2M in FY2025 to $84.6M in FY2027, an increase of 29.7%. Over the same two years the rest of the General Fund operating budget (every other department and appropriation, excluding transfers to debt service and capital funds) rose 15.4%, from $238.9M to $275.7M, and the total General Fund rose 6.1%, from $371.5M to $394.0M. Fire’s share of the General Fund went from 17.6% to 21.5%, the highest in the 13 fiscal years the file covers; from FY2015 through FY2025 it stayed between 15.3% and 19.0%.

Nearly all of the increase is personnel. Fire salary and wage lines, net of vacancy-savings adjustments, went from $29.5M to $41.1M, and the Fire & Police Pension contribution budgeted in the Fire Department went from $14.7M to $19.6M. Personnel lines account for 97.4% of the $19.4M rise; non-personnel lines moved from $6.55M to $7.05M. The rise came in two steps: $65.2M to $80.4M in FY2026, then $84.6M in FY2027.

The pattern holds under a narrower definition. Counting only city departments, and leaving out general-government and outside-agency appropriations, Fire’s share went from 22.9% to 26.0% while the other departments together grew 9.4%. Police, the largest department, grew 12.2% over the same two years once the 911 emergency services contract is set aside, since it is budgeted outside the Police Department in FY2027.

Over a longer span, Fire grew 80.2% from FY2021 ($46.9M) to FY2027, against 55.6% for the rest of the operating General Fund. These are approved budget amounts, not actual spending, and the file records what was budgeted, not why. Figures were recomputed against the city’s live file on 29 September 2026 and matched.