Orange City Council members received a stark warning from their accounting consultants last week: they’ll be facing bankruptcy in three years if they don’t increase sales tax, cut 12% of their general fund and bring new businesses into the city.

Without any changes, the city will have over $40 million in debt by the end of 2031, according to a new study from Grant Thornton, a consulting firm hired by the city.

“We have a Nordstrom’s appetite and we have to operate on a Walmart budget,” said Shawn Stewart, a principal from Grant Thornton, at the July 22 city council meeting.

It’s a crisis decades in the making according to their study, which found the city lagging anywhere from one to three decades behind in economic development and highlighted that the city’s revenue is only increasing

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