On Monday, the City Manager released the 2011-2012 Proposed Operating Budget. Although the City has been discussing and taking actions related to the budget for weeks, the release of the Proposed Operating Budget is the first detailed look at how the City intends to balance the budget while still providing services to our residents.
The entire document is 1,064 pages, and that doesn’t include several Budget Addenda that have already been released and will continue to be released. Since it is nearly impossible to summarize over a thousand pages in any significant detail, this blog entry will paint the big picture and over the next few weeks I will follow up with more detailed looks at specific parts of the budget.
As you already know, it’s not a pretty picture. The deficit stands at $115 million, and our city charter requires that we balance the budget each fiscal year. In addition, over the last several years we have already significantly reduced staff and expenses, so every cut that is proposed in the operating budget is a difficult one.
The budget proposes total spending for 2011-2012 of $2.5 billion, which is $186.1 million less than last year’s budget. The budget also proposes decreasing the number of City employees by 10%, which would result in the elimination of nearly 600 positions, bringing us to a total of just over 5,000 City workers. Over the last decade, San Jose San Jose
No department or City Service Area* would be spared if the proposed budget is implemented in its entirety. Over the next few weeks, I will more specifically address the proposed budget for each of the six CSAs, but here are some of the highlights:
The budget proposes to eliminate 195 police officers and 63 firefighters. The fire department would also operate under a “flexible brown-out plan,” which means that no fire stations would be closed, but a fire engine or truck would be taken out of service if personnel are needed to cover absences or vacancies, instead of using off-duty firefighters (which requires payment of overtime).
- Branch libraries, currently open 4.5 days a week, would only be open three days a week, and over 40 positions would be eliminated. In addition, the Bascom, Seven Trees,
Educational Park - Fees would be increased for parks and swimming pools, and over 180 positions in the Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services Department would be eliminated
- The ten hub community centers would remain open, which is good news, but the hours would be reduced.
- The Department of Transportation, which handles landscaping as well as road maintenance, would eliminate 11.5 positions.
- Five Code Enforcement Inspectors and one supervisor would be eliminated
In addition, many current City services would be either partially or wholly outsourced, including:
- Park maintenance and custodial services
- Graffiti abatement
- Police and Fire service at the Airport
This budget would also result in significantly reduced contributions to local non-profits.
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* The City and the budget are broken down into six different City Service Areas (CSAs). A CSA is a way of dividing the City's key lines of business as viewed from the community's perspective. It also allows the City to align services provided in individual departments. Thus, a particular City department may be implicated in more than one CSA; for example, the City’s Planning, Building, and Code Enforcement (PBCE) Department appears in the Community & Economic Development CSA and the Neighborhood Services CSA because PBCE’s duties and responsibilities impact both economic development and neighborhood services.
The six CSAs are:
• Community and Economic Development
• Environmental and Utility Services
• Neighborhood Services
• Public Safety
• Transportation and Aviation Services
• Strategic Support
