Budget Blame Game

District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly
Photos by Luke Thomas

By Chris Daly

February 20, 2008

Over 100 people braved the driving rain yesterday to protest mid-year service reductions. With cuts to the General and Laguna Honda Hospital, chronic care nurses, senior services and the City's only 24-hour drop-in for homeless people, some of our City's most vulnerable face serious harm.

Organized by SEIU 1021, with the support of the People's Budget Collaborative, and featuring progressive Supervisors Ammiano, McGoldrick, Mirkarimi, and myself, the rally was tailor-made to call out the Newsom Administration for their mean-spirited cuts. Instead, I took the opportunity to examine the Board of Supervisors' complicity in the current budget morass.

Unlike the unraveling of the State budget, San Francisco's $229 million budget deficit is not the result of dropping revenue. Instead, the problem is runaway spending.

Newsom's reelection campaign was fully engaged during last year's budget process, and the Mayor had numerous early supporters to reward. Most notably, the Police Officers Association received a 4-year contract worth an additional $80 million dollars. The Newsom campaign also trumpeted numerous new initiatives with a $40 million price tag attached.

As Budget Chair, I took an aggressive stance against Newsom's pork barrel spending -- opposing the sweetheart POA contract and moved to eliminate Newsom's new spending. The Newsom operation responded with a nasty smear campaign against me.

I turned to my progressive colleagues for support, but was greeted with deafening silence. Supervisor Mirkarimi refused to support my budget motion. President Peskin removed me from the Budget Committee. Then on 10-1 votes, the Board passed the POA contract and the Newsom pork-barrel budget. In a very public slight, my motion to delay the start of one of the new Police Academy classes in order to save public health nurses failed for a lack of second. Not one second member of the Board was even willing to discuss this proposal!

So on this rainy Tuesday, I put it out there -- the Board of Supervisors shares responsibility with the Mayor for our current budget crisis. We had the opportunity to reject Newsom's sweetheart contract and pork barrel spending, and we took a pass.

Now, as some Supervisors ratchet-up their rhetoric against the Mayor for his spending on plasma televisions and pricey staffers, we also should acknowledge that we sent Newsom the wrong message last year -- that the Board wasn't willing to stand against the political winds to stop that kind of spending. And when Supervisors denounce cuts to services like chronic care nurses, we need to answer for our inadequate action on the same issue 6 months ago.

With a very messy budget season approaching, this year our action needs to match our rhetoric.

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