Mid-Year Budget Cuts: “For Whom the Bell Tolls?"Paul Hogarthbyline‚ Dec. 09‚ 2008Morale at City Hall is grim these days, as everyone awaits Mayor Gavin Newsom’s announcement of mid-year budget cuts. Cuts that were supposed to come down on Friday … then Monday … then “in a couple days.” Cuts we all know are somehow inevitable in this economic climate, but the Mayor’s Office has few answers. All we get are grim projections of the City’s revenues that don’t even account for inevitable cuts coming from the state level. Even members of the Board of Supervisors are mostly in the dark; while the Mayor’s Office says they’re “consulting” them, their method sounds more like Newsom’s famous Town Hall lectures that he used to wage. The Mayor’s much-ballyhooed “State of the City” address – all 7½ hours of it broadcast on YouTube – barely mentions the budget deficit at all, besides vague assertions that “we’re there for those most in need” in the “next budget cycle.” While the Mayor stalls on mid-year budget cut announcements, his office sends out press releases announcing that San Francisco is ready for the next tsunami. In the absence of such leadership, the Board of Supervisors should start voting on de-appropriating parts of the budget – or else we just keep waiting … |