Supervisors Told They’ll Have to Hold the Line on Budget

A bleak budget picture for the next fiscal year was painted Tuesday for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

The best the county can hope for is that the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 might be balanced without having to cut any current programs, said Manuel Lopez, director of financial management.

But Lopez said any new programs or expansion of current services will have to be paid for by cutting elsewhere in the budget.

“I think it’s going to be a very difficult year,” Lopez said.

Since the current budget was approved in August, the Board of Supervisors has approved new programs, including improvements in the coroner’s office and at the county’s mental hospital, which could cost as much as $14 million a year. An additional $13 million worth of actions are being considered, Lopez said, and county departments are expected to overspend their budgets by as much as $8.6 million.

Assistant Chief Administrator David Janssen added that the county expects to end the year with only $10 million unspent, compared to $22 million last year. In the past, the money not spent in one year has often been used to pay for new programs in succeeding years.

Supervisor Susan Golding said Tuesday’s news may prompt her to again request a freeze on county hiring. A similar Golding proposal last year was rejected by her board colleagues.

But Golding, who seems to have more backing for such a proposal now, said a freeze might be the only way to hold the county administration accountable for what happens when programs are cut or end while the employees who ran those programs remain on the county payroll.

“What I would like would be for us to take a harder look at being creative and stop adding,” Golding said. “Maybe we just need to redo what were doing, or let some things go.”

Supervisor Brian Bilbray suggested that the county needed “not a hiring policy but a firing policy.”

“At times we shuffle bureaucrats around just to fill them in because we’re looking at their personal situations,” Bilbray said. “But we have to look at the overall operations and the services to the public. Sometimes we forget we’re here to provide services to the public; the public is not here to provide employment opportunities to the public agencies.”

The fiscal report the board reviewed Tuesday did not take into account any budget reductions that might result from the federal government’s budget-balancing efforts. Those numbers will be added to the discussions as the final proposed budget is prepared and the federal government’s actions become more clear.