Mayor and Council Can Cut Own Budgets to Reverse Cuts to Parks and Libraries

San Diego Citizens’ Budget Project Delivers Next Set of Budget “Options Reports” Covering Libraries, Parks and Recreation, and Mayor-Council

SAN DIEGO – While the Mayor and City Council meet today to inflict service cuts upon the budgets of the Library Department and the Parks & Recreation Department, The Performance Institute will release a comprehensive framework that would reverse the proposed cuts in service. The Institute’s options reports provides between $4.8 million and $16.4 million of cost-saving options in both departments’ budgets to prevent a tragic reduction in services. The framework also suggests that the Mayor and Council can allocate up to $4.6 million from their own budgets if they would merely accept the same size staffs as the Mayor and Council of other cities like Phoenix and Atlanta.

“The Mayor and Council say they regret cutting library hours, recreation centers and youth programs and claim they have no other choice. Our proposal today shows that to be completely false. The Mayor and Council have a number of cost savings options in each Department and could reduce their own budgets to save all of these services. By not acting on these cost saving alternatives, they have chosen the path of service cuts rather than fundamental reform,” Performance Institute President Carl DeMaio commented. DeMaio is leading the research efforts for the San Diego Citizens Budget Project in closely analyzing the City’s budget.

25 “Options” for Library Department (Saving $1.3-$4.2 million)
Among the options outlined for Council’s consideration: competitively sourcing the Technical Services Division, cutting back on public affairs campaigns, and suspending the duplicative “Business Resources and Technology Link” service.

42 “Options” for Parks and Recreation Department (Saving $3.5-$12.2 million)
Among the options outlined for Council’s consideration: reduce subsidies for corporate and non-profit special events held on City lands, improvement in the supervisor-to-staff ratio, and the competitive sourcing of maintenance of city pools, maintenance of city parks, and the operations of the municipal golf courses and Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Benchmarking the Mayor and Council Budget (Saving $4.6 Million)
Compared to those of cities of comparable size, the budgets of San Diego’s Office of the Mayor and City Council are bloated. The Mayor and Council’s combined staff of 111 and budget of just under $10 million is nearly twice that of Phoenix and Atlanta. The Mayor’s budget even has 3 “phantom” staff positions included in it. The Institute asks the Council to accept the same size budget as Phoenix—the next largest city from San Diego.

The Budget “Options Reports” discussed above—as well as those for Police, Fire and City Attorney—are located online at www.sandiegobudget.org. The reports for the majority of other city departments will be released at a “Town Hall Dialogue” at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 18, at the U.S. Grant Hotel downtown. Based here in San Diego, the Institute is a national government reform think tank that promotes the principles of performance, transparency, competition and accountability in government.

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