Mo' Money, Mo' Problems
For months we've been hearing about how bad the budget deficit is for both the city and for MUNI. Last week, we got some good news on both fronts. It turns out that after looking through the proverbial couch cushion, more money was found to help with both the MUNI budget mess and the budget budget mess. That's the good news. The bad news is that everyone has to figure out what to do with it.
Let's start off with the extra money for the city budget. Thanks to the super-hot real estate market, the city found an extra $43 million to help plug the $102 million dollar debt (for all you non-math heads out there, that means our debt is now at $59 million dollars). That’s still a pretty big hole. So, the question, then, is what to do with it?
Last night Gavin proposed to spend most of that money to fix long neglected infrastructure problems, things like cleaning up the parks and fixing streets. The point being that due to previous deficits, the city has robbed Peter (city infrastructure) to help Paul (basic services like health care) and now Peter is looking all grubby and was last seen at Amoeba selling back his DVDs. It's also considered an investment, something that can hopefully bring future revenue-- nothing says this city sucks as a place to move your company like streets straight out of Calcutta-- and to prevent further costs down the road when the streets worsen and eventually do get repaired. All of which makes sense except that the money could also go to services that have been cut, things like health clinics and senior homes and other things that people need. Really need. In other words, do you take the hit now and invest in the future or worry about the future later and get a bigger band aid? The Board of Supervisors have already said they want the money to go to services and the usual suspects of activists have started in with the rallying.
Then there's MUNI. After fiddling with some new numbers, it was announced that the MUNI deficit is 11 million dollars better than expected. In fact, it could be back in the black. So MUNI Director of Transportation Michael Burns announced yesterday that the additional money will go to lowering parking fees and fines. You know, instead of keeping fares low and not cutting service. The point being, well, umm... we don't have a frickin' clue. Seriously, unless Michael Burns is getting kickbacks from GM or is actually on some undercover mission to destroy MUNI this makes absolutely no sense. It’s robbing Peter AND Paul to help Zilpah the sheep peddler. And Zilpah doesn't need the help.
To make matters more complicated, The Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee approved the MUNI budget last week, with only Chris Daly voting against it (Daly called it a victory for the "car zealots" on his blog), which means the MUNI budget is already on the way to being approved. But because he introduced a resolution against it, a public hearing will be held next Tuesday on it. The ordinance on parking fees will be voted on next week and the full MUNI budget will be voted on by the entire BoS in June.