San Francisco Sausage

Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting to finalize Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget was a doozy.

First up was Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who made his usual appearance before the board to argue that Mistermayor’s budget cuts will force him to trim staff and contract out cases, which will cost The City about $670,000. Much to my delight, he came equipped with no fewer than six visual aides, including an enormous $1,000 bill that he held up when exclaiming, "Now, I don’t want to be on the end of this when I have to come back and say I told you so!"

In order to avoid the extra costs associated with contracting out cases, the board voted to take $900,000 from the Indigent Defense Fund, which is used by the local trial court to pay for those outside attorneys — the Budget and Finance Committee had already cut it by $1.2 million — and give $650,000 to the Public Defender’s Office and $250,000 to the District Attorney’s Office.

Now, the district attorney’s budget has suffered a $1.7 million cut this year, but as Supervisor Chris Daly — who, along with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, voted against giving $250,000 to the District Attorney’s Office — pointed out that there’s less of a connection between the defense fund and prosecutor’s office.

Other supervisors, such as David Chiu and David Campos, argued that the distribution needed to reflect "parity" — and by "parity" it looks like they meant, "I don’t want to appear soft on crime."

To recap: In order to save $670,000 that would have to be spent defending people, the board removed $900,000 from a fund used to pay lawyers to defend people.

Later in the meeting, after voting to cut three command-staff positions from the Police Department in order to make sure there would be money available for the public financing of future candidates for political office, the board considered several proposals to put money on reserve.

 A side note: Putting money on reserve means it cannot be spent until the Budget and Finance Committee elects to release it at a later date. By holding some funds hostage, the board hopes to ensure that Mistermayor spends other funds the way he and the board previously agreed to. "Trust, but verify," Campos said.

Daly wanted to put $300 million on reserve and Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi wanted to target funds for Mistermayor’s favorite projects, such as the Community Justice Center, for reserve status. Both proposals failed. But Campos’ proposal to cut $45 million from the seven largest city departments passed with only supervisors Michela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu, Bevan Dufty and Elsbernd voting no.

 To recap: Next to Daly’s and Mirkarimi’s proposals, Campos’ smaller, arbitrary approach seemed downright reasonable.

So that’s how the final budget was made. It was not pretty, but it was pretty fascinating.