Supervisor Chris Daly was right.
I may not always agree with his budget priorities, but after nine years on the Board of Supervisors, he knows a thing or two about the system.
Let us back up for a moment and look at how the budget process in San Francisco works. The mayor can neither affirmatively force spending on anything (this is important) nor reduce spending on anything. He can, however, completely veto any line item in the budget passed by supervisors.
So each year, the mayor proposes a budget that contains cuts and expenditures. Supervisors then demand that funding for some of the cuts be restored (this is the “add-back” process). Both sides talk tough, but in the end, the board basically has to fund all the things the mayor wants (otherwise the mayor can just veto their programs) and try to wrangle a little change from the mayor. Then, they pass the budget and pray that the mayor does not later veto those add-backs, citing unforeseen budget problems.
That brings me back to Daly.
Last week’s Budget and Finance Committee meeting started out as a big love-in about the $44 million in add-backs supervisors managed to achieve in negotiations with Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office. “You guys were so awesome!” “No, you!”
But while Supervisor John Avalos, chairman of the committee, was (literally) drinking Champagne, “Daly Downer” interjected that the $44 million in add-backs could easily be vetoed by Mistermayor in a few months.
To his credit, Avalos had a letter from the mayor saying no line-item vetoes will be made without consultation with the board. (Here's the letter: Download State budget letter 7.1.2009.) And Joe Arellano of the Mayor’s Office pointed out to me that Mistermayor postponed a number of emergency cuts last year because of concerns by supervisors and also made changes to the Muni budget based on negotiations with the board. He affirmed, “Mayor Newsom believes in working collaboratively with the board on the budget and the tough choices ahead for The City.”
The threat of vetoes and further cuts in general is serious this year because bad news from the state will soon arrive with a bang, not a whimper, and will mean changes to The City’s budget. Note that $7 million of the $44 million in add-backs was taken from a $25 million reserve set aside for dealing with state cuts. It’s hard to believe the add-backs will be immune from additional cuts.
And that’s why Daly wasn’t drinking Champagne last week. When the full board votes on the budget (complete with the fancy new add-backs) Tuesday, I humbly suggest that rum and rosaries would be more appropriate for the after party.
WEBSITE BONUS: One option for the Board is to put the funding for a some Mayoral priorities on "conditional reserve" - which means that the Budget and Finance Committee later have to vote to release the funds. At last Wednesday's meeting, Supervisor Mirkarimi proposed doing just that but got zero support from other members of the committee. (Though he supported Mirkarimi's proposal, Daly is not on the committee and therefore cold not vote. ) We'll see this discussed again at the July 14th meeting of the full board.
I humbly suggest that whiskey and rosaries would be more appropriate
ooh, gonna have to steal that line.
Posted by: generic | July 09, 2009 at 09:45