Balance the City Budget
The current structural imbalance of the City must be dealt with responsibility.
San Francisco has faced deficits of greater than $400 million over the last several years, and this trend is expected to continue for the next two or more years. The deficit for 2011 is forecasted to exceed $700 million. Simply said, the City is spending more money than it takes in.
As your District 6 City Supervisor, there are several actions I will take to address this problem:
- ENCOURAGE GREATER REVENUE, through increased economic growth, job creation and business development.
- ENACT A YEAR-ROUND BUDGET PROCESS, including all sources of revenue and expenditures. This must include all primary City Departments, Enterprise Departments (agencies such as PUC, Airport, and MTA that derive most of their revenue from user fees), all non-profits and NGO’s currently part of the extensive wrap-around service delivery system of our City and County government.
- CONDUCT AN IN-DEPTH AUDIT of every aspect of the city budget – from wasteful practices by City departments to duplicative services provided by non-profit, sole source contracts.
- DEMAND GREATER ACCOUNTABILITY from our City departments and non-profit service providers.
As Executive Director of The Human Rights Commission, I led the effort which resulted in the department saving approximately $1 million from a $6 million budget during the last fiscal year (2009/2010). We did this by analyzing all expenditures for necessity and relevance to our core mission. Action was taken to re-organize the agency into more efficient work groups, implement more focused management and introduce better technology. If this responsible approach is employed city-wide, the City budget will realize a substantial fiscal savings.
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