Community reacts to proposed budget amid improving economy

Hutton Marshall | Uptown Editor

Manny Lopez | Uptown News

Mayor Kevin Faulconer proposed his first budget as San Diego’s chief executive in April to considerable bipartisan praise. Contrary to prior years characterized by spending cuts and budget reduction, Faulconer’s proposed budget would increase spending almost uniformly across departments, as projected revenues paint a sunnier portrait of the City’s financial situation than many predicted.

The $2.97 billion spending plan will dictate the City’s operations and spending from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015, and while its been met with relatively little contention thus far, it still must be vetted through the City Council’s review process in May prior to final adoption in June.

“This budget is the culmination of a decade of hard work by San Diegans who came together to help stabilize City Hall finances and bring our City back from the brink of bankruptcy,” Faulconer stated in a press release. “Voters enacted financial reforms, like pension reform and managed competition, while the City Council adopted sound fiscal policies that have made San Diego a model for financial accountability and stability.”

In the plan is $298 million for the capital improvement budget, a 66 percent increase from last year. Expanded library hours and a greater investment in the police department, specifically geared toward officer retention, have been broadly praised as well.

Council President Todd Gloria, a progressive democrat, attributes the republican mayor’s warmly received budget to Faulconer’s prior role as a city councilmember. The budget review process depends largely on the wishes and will of the councilmembers, who during the May review process will push for funding amendments not included in the mayor’s initial budget proposal. Gloria said Faulconer was able to predict the desires of the City Council more astutely than past mayors because of his familiarity with the current council representatives.

Gloria also cites Faulconer’s inclusion of the homeless spending plan that Gloria proposed during his final days as interim mayor late last year as a key example of Faulconer accurately anticipating the priorities of councilmembers.

“The fact that he included it means a great deal to me,” Gloria said of the $1.9 million reallocated toward homeless services and programs. “And perhaps that’s an example of how much further in the process we are.”

Gloria also chairs the City Council’s Budget Committee, which means he will lead the May budget review meetings, where the full council will consider each department’s budget separately and hear public comment before the mayor releases his revised budget later in the month. During this process, Gloria said he’ll push for a director to oversee preliminary implementation of the Climate Action Plan across City departments, an expense totaling to $120,000.

While the budget hearings are effective in allowing the public to express their wants and needs directly to the City Council, Kyra Greene of the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) said ways remain to make the process more inclusive.

Greene conducts research and advises on policy for the CPI’s Community Budget Alliance (CBA), a broad coalition of over 40 organizations advocating for a progressive, community-engaged budget process.

While the CBA successfully advocated for the creation of an evening budget review session — they argued the morning and early afternoon meetings weren’t feasible for full-time workers — Greene said adopting a “participatory budgeting” process would mandate inclusion of the citizenry in San Diego’s budgetary decision-making process.

Through participatory budgeting, a portion of the Capital Improvements Budget would be allocated to community members to decide for themselves which projects, programs or services the money would be best allocated to.

The CBA also advocates for specific spending initiatives as well, typically related to CIP spending, code enforcement, youth programs and other programs with feasible goals that typically have the greatest impact on historically neglected neighborhoods. For instance, Greene said they would like to see the number of Code Enforcement officers assigned to the recently passed living wage ordinance increased from two to four.

“A lot of the time it feels like the problems in these neighborhoods are just too big to deal with, so we really want to highlight little changes that can be part of the process in making big changes,” Greene said.

Despite the bounty of funding increases, broad support of the mayor’s proposition is not universal. Councilmember David Alvarez expressed displeasure with what he described as a deficit in community and neighborhood parks throughout the City, especially in typically underserved communities. Alvarez said that with the increased revenue expectations, the City could have fully funded Pacific Breezes Community Park, Riviera Del Sol Neighborhood Park or Hidden Trails Neighborhood Park. He said will advocate for this funding during the budget review process.

“Additionally, I believe that there is still inefficiency and waste to be found in our City budget and will be reading this over the next two weeks to identify areas that we can streamline and use those tax dollars to support increased community and neighborhood priorities,” Alvarez stated.

This personifies another problem Gloria forewarns in this year’s budget review process. Whereas in years past the question was “What do we cut?” This year, the question has become “What services do we provide?”

“I don’t know if this might be harder in some ways,” Gloria said “It’s going to be a completely different dynamic, but on the whole, it’s one I’d prefer, because we’re talking about what more we can do for the city, rather than what less.”

Those inclined to read the proposed FY2015 budget in its entirety may find it at sandiego.gov/fm/proposed.