While San Diego community leaders keep lobbying against the mayor’s proposed budget cuts, a quartet of City Council members is proposing a compromise plan to soften cuts to the arts and reverse cuts to libraries and recreation centers.
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The compromise would help appease hundreds of residents who complained at a five-hour public hearing Wednesday night about those cuts and some other proposals, including plans to eliminate the Office of Child and Youth Success.
The compromise proposal, which would need at least one more supporter on the nine-member council, would pay for a long list of budget restorations primarily with new cuts to homeless services and police surveillance efforts.
It is being proposed by Councilmembers Sean Elo-Rivera, Henry Foster, Vivian Moreno and Kent Lee. Elo-Rivera, Foster and Moreno represent the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods, all south of Interstate 8.
The compromise budget plan, which must be vetted by the city’s independent budget analyst, would restore $1.2 million in funding for library hours and $1.7 million for recreation center hours.
That would allow the city to completely reverse cuts in hours Mayor Todd Gloria is proposing at nine library branches and 24 rec centers. The mayor’s plan prioritizes maintaining hours in low-income neighborhoods.
The four council members’ proposal would also add $750,000 to restore a program that helps small businesses, $900,000 to help council offices fund community events and $200,000 to restore a position devoted to promoting San Diego as a setting for movies and TV.
The proposal would also fully restore the Office of Child and Youth Success with $400,000 in funding.
The mayor’s proposal to cut that office was harshly criticized during the Wednesday hearing.
“It is disappointing to me that spending on youth should be treated so frivolously,” said Aiden Hughes, a member of the San Diego Youth Commission.
The proposed library cuts were also panned by many speakers.
“When public libraries are prioritized in communities, research shows that there are wide-ranging benefits from reduced crime, improved educational outcomes and increased employment rates,” said Claudia Kightlinger. “This means that cuts to the San Diego Public Library are cuts to public safety, cuts to economic development and cuts to youth success.”
The restorations would be paid for with $3.8 million in cuts to homelessness programs, including by closing the Lighthouse shelter and Central Elementary secure parking lot and shrinking the Newton Avenue shelter.
Other sources of funding would be $3 million from cutting middle manager jobs, $2.2 million from canceling a law enforcement contract with Ubicquia for automated license plate readers and $750,000 by implementing two-officer units in the Police Department.
Some members of the council have criticized surveillance efforts by city police, including license plate readers.
The middle manager jobs would likely be in the city’s Communications Department and Performance and Analytics Department, the proposal says.
The proposal would also draw undetermined amounts of money from Measure C, a hotel tax hike that funds the city’s convention center and other programs.
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That money would help restore grants to city arts programs, which are slated for a complete $11.8 million cut in the mayor’s proposed budget.
That proposed cut drew the harshest criticism of all Wednesday night.
“It’s going to hurt regular people, working people, people in communities of color in every district of this city,” said Barry Edelstein, artistic director of the Old Globe.
Christine Martinez of Arts and Culture San Diego said arts groups just want their funding to remain the same.
“There is an entire community and ecosystem here that — if you cut our funding — will not come back for generations,” she said.
The four council members pushing the compromise proposal say they are also seeking other solutions to city arts funding.
“We are supportive of, and are engaging in, productive discussions with external philanthropic partners to develop a robust, ongoing strategy for attracting long-term regional and philanthropic support, as well as state funding opportunities — to create lasting funding solutions in support of San Diego’s arts and cultural institutions,” their proposal says.
Another potential funding source cited in the proposal is starting to use grants and penalty funds obtained by the city attorney’s office to cover general fund expenses.
The proposal would certainly need a fifth supporter to reach majority support on the nine-member council, but it could also need a sixth to potentially override a veto by the mayor.
Last spring, the mayor vetoed the budget adopted by the council, and an override ended up being necessary.
The budget proposed by the mayor this spring prioritizes firefighting, law enforcement and infrastructure projects — requiring significant cuts almost everywhere else. It aims to close a $146 million projected deficit.
Before releasing his initial budget in April, the mayor urged the council not to make significant cuts to homelessness, contending that could reverse notable progress the city has made on the issue.
He then proposed eliminating funding for a long-running homeless services hub — the Neil Good Day Center — and recommended another $3.7 million in cuts to such services.
The city’s independent budget analyst is scheduled to release a separate proposed budget compromise Tuesday. It will likely share many elements with the proposal from Elo-Rivera, Lee, Foster and Moreno, because it will be based partly on their input.
The council is scheduled to debate that proposal June 5 and then possibly adopt a final budget June 9.
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