Posted on 12/02/2007 1:30:33 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Talk about spin.
Much of the projected $229 million budget deficit that now preoccupies San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was created with his blessing - and with his full knowledge that the city didn't have the dough to cover it.
Newsom and his aides, however, didn't let the cat out of the bag until after his re-election last month.
According to the mayor's own memo on the troubles, issued late last month, the city's descent into the fiscal sinkhole was triggered by three big factors:
-- Voter approval in November of Proposition A, which mandated almost $28 million to the Municipal Railway - a deal that Newsom backed.
-- New labor contracts for police, firefighters and nurses that included pay bump-ups of 24 percent over the next four years - which Newsom's office negotiated.
-- And the absence of the usual $100 million carryover from the previous year's budget - which Newsom's office knew about months ago, even as the mayor's people were negotiating those aforementioned contracts.
Still, they continued spending.
And unlike the governor, who is facing a $10 billion state shortfall thanks to the housing slump, Newsom can't blame the economy for his troubles.
"Our revenues here in the city are doing fine," Controller Ed Harrington said.
Newsom, who is now ordering cuts left and right, "doesn't even have one tiny morsel of regret" for how he got in this mess, spokesman Nathan Ballard said.
It's just the price of getting more cops on the streets and nurses in the hospitals, Ballard said.
Given that the projected shortfall has Newsom calling for across-the-board spending cuts and a hiring freeze, one might think he'd be a bit worried.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Truly Gastric Nuisance is "One of the 'up-and-comers' and bright stars in the future of the dem party".. lolol
No, no, no, no you don't.
I'm no Schwarzegroupie, but the budget shortfall is not due to the housing slump, it's due to wreckless, excessive spending by a Liberal Assembly, Senate and Gubernor.
And how the hell can a CITY overspend by almost a quarter-billion dollars???
The big question: are the bums taken care of?
I guess so,, my other half makes fairly frequent trips up there, she has been warned to just avoid them as much as possible.
They are such a tourist draw, yaknow.
Newsom’s election despite this budget sinkhole is like selling a product that contains lead; that info was withheld from the public, so San Franiscans should return the toxic product and sue Newsom and the Democratic party that manufactured him...
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