A good thing about our Government :)

In light of everything that has been going on in the City, California and in Washington, I must say I'm pleasantly shocked at the ability of the City government to get this thing done. Having had some direct interaction with the Board recently, I can say that (with the exception of Daly), this seems to be a very focused group working hard to rectify some of the major problems we face. The budget is indicative of that.
 

How well the Mayor/Board did in adopting this year's budget will only be known later on in the year when we assess how we are faring--will there be mid-year cuts?   Were the revenue projections assumed in the budget accurate or generous?  Did they accomplish long term savings or just kick the can down the road again? The reality is that we face $700+ million deficits in the next two years.  To put that in perspective, the entire General Fund budget is I believe no more than $1.2 billion, so our projected deficits are more than 50% of the ENTIRE discretionary budget.  I have a hard time applauding the folks at the helm of a ship that appears headed towards an iceberg.  I didn't see any long term reforms that will cut our structural deficit in this year's budget, but we really need to have that discussion because you can only kick the can down the road so much before you have to face the music.   The longer we wait, the more painful that process will be and we need some courageous leadership from elected officials to not only have that discussion, but to take real steps towards a solution.

Thank you bobbyh.  Could not have said it better myself.

OK, so we have a budget.  I admit I haven't been following the budget process because every time I look at how much money we spend and still have potholes in our streets, panhandlers, homeless encampments, weekly murders, and some of the worst performing schools, I ask myself:  Where is the Money Going?  Yes, we have a budget.  It is for 6.55 BILLION Dollars!

If you take the budget:  $6,550,000,000, and divide it by the population of SF:  800,000, the per capita burden is $8,187.  Fortunately, the income needed to fund the budget comes from many sources including sales tax, hotel tax, property tax and hundreds of other sources.  Raise your hand if you think you and your family are getting a value of $8,187 per family member. 

No other city in the nation has a comparable per capita budget.  Not even New York - although it comes close.

One caveat about my ranting: Unfortunately I do not have recent numbers - my data is a good 5 years old at least.  In fact it is so old that the San Francisco per capita budget was only $7,660 per person back then.  So, the numbers are dated and who knows - maybe NYC has caught up by now.  But take a look at some of the other cities.  

So, yeah, we have a budget.  Can we be proud of it?  No, not IMHO.

City                       City Budget        City Population          Per Capita

San Francisco          $5,700,000,000             744,041         $7,661

New York City        $59,000,000,000          8,143,197          $7,245

San Jose                 $3,000,000,000             973,602          $3,081

Oakland                  $1,088,405,271             415,492          $2,620

Boston                   $2,294,880,000              596,638          $3,846

Los Angeles           $6,786,998,729            3,976,071          $1,707

Chicago                  $7,414,691,921           2,800,000          $2,648

Columbus               $1,298,651,100              761,078          $1,706

Jacksonville            $1,436,395,960              834,789          $1,721

Denver                       $888,800,000             566,974          $1,568