Willow Glen Resident
News
Budget group asks for residents' help in curing large shortfall in city funding
By Stephen Baxter
Closing San Jose's projected multimillion-dollar budget gap in 2008 may mean new taxes for city residents, and city leaders are exploring the issue in a series of community meetings.
Mayor Chuck Reed set a goal to eliminate the projected budget shortfall, which is set to reach $137 million by 2011. To gather input from residents, the San Jose-based nonprofit group Working Partnerships held a meeting at the King Library on Dec. 1 with more than 100 residents, business leaders and other stakeholders. Additional meetings are planned for Jan. 7 and Jan. 12.
"I was very pleased with the amount of energy in the room," said Working Partnerships policy director Bob Brownstein, who spoke at the event. "Every solution wasn't feasible, but that's the kind of energy I was looking for."
To reduce the city's shortfall, city leaders can raise taxes, cut services or employees, try to deliver services at less cost or use a combination of tactics. New taxes such as a parcel tax would require voter approval.
Other possibilities for raising revenue include levying a new parcel tax and increasing the business tax, utility tax and hotel room tax.
San Jose's charter states that the city council must pass a balanced budget by July 1 each year, but for the last five years city leaders have had to cut costs or raise fees to balance it, said San Jose budget director Larry Lisenbee. The shortfall is based on projections for unmet infrastructure needs and new obligations such as city employees' retiree benefits.
A city-sponsored budget survey conducted in November drew more than 500 respondents. Although the survey was unscientific, more than 43 percent of those surveyed indicated that the worst option would be to impose new or increased taxes on residents. More than 48 percent said they oppose reducing city services. The most popular approach to solving the deficit was to change the city's organizational structure and policies to help reduce the cost of delivering services.
For example, several years ago some San Jose libraries had separate rooms and lending cards for collections of video and audiotapes. The system was expensive to run and many patrons didn't use it. When the media items were combined with the regular collection, more people checked them out and staff time was more efficient.
Brownstein, who mentioned the library change, said all fixes are "not necessarily pain-free."
He said if city employees lose their jobs, response times could be cut on such services as trimming trees or repairing sidewalks.
Another option that was popular in the survey involved nightclubs.
Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed strongly supported charging nightclubs to fund targeted police safety activities.
Nearly half of respondents said they like the idea of establishing a way for greater corporate and community sponsorship of city facilities.
Most people did not want to lose police and firefighters, but they were open to the consolidation of other city departments.
The community budget survey and community budget working group meetings are part of a broader outreach effort. A website, www.MyBudgetIdea.com. has also been launched to gather residents' thoughts.
The community budget working group is tentatively set to meet on Jan. 12 at 9:30 a.m. at the King Library, 150 E. San Fernando St. Consultants are expected to present an analysis of ideas that have been generated and will collect new suggestions.
Brownstein also will host a workshop on the city budget on Jan. 7 at 7 p.m. at the Working Partnerships offices at 2102 Almaden Road. Those interested in attending it should send an e-mail to bbrown stein@atwork.org.
