O’Connor Says She’ll Slash Her Staff If Colleagues Will : City Budget: Critics call challenge a publicity stunt by mayor, whose own office has doubled in size.

Critics immediately dismissed as a political publicity stunt a challenge Monday by Mayor Maureen O’Connor to slash $1 million from her $2.4-million office budget if the eight other City Council members collectively match the cut.

Citing the city’s $60-million budget shortfall for the coming fiscal year, O’Connor proposed to eliminate 15 of the 38 staff positions now under her control, a “challenge cut” that she invited her colleagues to match dollar for dollar when fiscal 1991 begins July 1.

“It is my belief that, in times of budget constraints, the pain of cuts must begin with the politicians, not the people,” the mayor wrote in a memo distributed Monday.

“Until the people are convinced that the politicians can rein in their own expenditures first, they will not grant us any hope of additional revenues for current or new programs,” she said.

But Councilman Bob Filner, perhaps O’Connor’s chief antagonist on the council, declared that O’Connor is not serious about the proposal and labeled her gambit “a joke.”

“It’s a substitute for leadership” on the city’s budget crisis, Filner said. “It’s a game that tries to put us on the defensive.”

Councilman John Hartley, whose clashes with the mayor have become more heated in recent weeks, dismissed the mayor’s suggestions as “political gamesmanship,” and Councilman Wes Pratt said O’Connor is “playing to the theater, as opposed to getting down in the trenches and dealing with the problem.”

Filner and other council members said O’Connor was aware of discussions on the council to remove some members from the mayor’s staff, which has doubled in size since she took office in 1986, when budget deliberations begin this spring.

“She knew they were going to be taken away and, rather than suffer this political defeat, she proposes this,” Filner said. “She is covering up her incredible enhancement of (staff) positions and her lack of ability to use them.”

According to figures provided by mayoral spokesman Paul Downey, O’Connor’s staff has grown from 19 to 38 during her nearly four years in office, mainly because of the acquisition of departments previously housed elsewhere in the city bureaucracy.

According to Downey, the eight-person Intergovernmental Relations Department, whose staff lobbies in Sacramento and Washington, was transferred into O’Connor’s office during fiscal 1988. The three-member binational affairs office, which promotes relations with Mexico, was removed from City Manager John Lockwood’s jurisdiction during fiscal 1987. And the mayor’s office acquired the two-person Downtown Marketing Consortium from the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce during the same fiscal year.

Pratt, however, contended that the Intergovernmental Affairs department was never formally transferred to the mayor’s control, even though she counts it as part of her budget, because an ordinance was never approved ordering the change.

Between 1986 and today, the total number of council staff members has increased from 60.2 to 72, including new positions approved in February for six of the council members, Downey said. Each council member now has six to eight staffers, including clerical employees and receptionists.

Although the council staff increase is, on a percentage basis, much smaller, Downey contended that the figures show that the mayor’s office is performing the same services as the eight council offices.

“They cover the entire city. We cover the entire city,” Downey said. “They have twice as many people to do the job we’re doing. And we’re saying we’ll do it with less, with 23 people.”

But Hartley said that comparison inaccurately reflects the burden of constituent service borne by the council staffs. “We are absolutely deluged with requests,” he said.

The mayor’s suggested cuts would eliminate two jobs in the marketing consortium, saving $200,000; two staffers who work with the arts community, saving $86,000; the three positions in binational affairs, saving $148,000, and the eight intergovernmental relations jobs, saving $734,000.

Even some of the council’s fiscal conservatives seemed unwilling to take up O’Connor’s offer, suggesting that the workloads of each office--and therefore their staffs--must be considered separately.

“I don’t think they’re related,” said Councilwoman Judy McCarty, who indicated that she is unwilling to cut anyone from her six-member staff. “If she says she can efficiently operate her office with less people, more power to her.”

Councilman Ron Roberts applauded the mayor’s proposal to cut the Downtown Marketing Consortium, but he would be unwilling to eliminate any of the six full-time positions in his office, a spokesman for Roberts said. A half-time paid intern’s position will not be filled next year, however.