by Chris Jennewein / Times of San Diego / Dec. 4, 2024
Mayor Todd Gloria announced Wednesday, Dec. 4th, that the city will freeze most hiring and review capital spending to address a $258 million budget deficit.
Speaking at a press conference at City Hall, Gloria said defeat of the Measure E sales tax increase in November left no option but an immediate effort to save money.
He said San Diego voters made it clear that “they want to continue to operate this city with our existing resources,” adding that he sees this as “an opportunity to reimagine how our city operates and the services it provides.”
The immediate cutbacks outlined Wednesday include:
- A freeze on all but the “most essential” hiring
- Suspending all nonessential overtime
- Pausing spending on travel and training
- Reviewing capital projects and halting new construction
- Pausing the civic center revitalization proposal
- Renegotiating or terminating some city leases
- Seeking to monetize the use of some city facilities, such as Golden Hall
“Since the beginning of my administration, I’ve focused on four key priorities: keeping San Diego safe, addressing our homelessness crisis, building more homes and fixing our roads. These priorities will not be changing,” Gloria said.
In preparing for the next budget, which would begin July 1, city departments will be asked to budget from scratch.
Gloria noted that as a council member, acting mayor and elected mayor he has been involved in 12 city budgets.
“I’ve seen this before. We’ve been here before. We’ve gone through it before. And we’ll do it again,” he said.
Time to stick a fork in Kettner and Vine. And no bad Midway Rising deals either.
I concur & also -Off that White Elephant (even sold for a loss) on Ash St.
More Bold, World Class ideas from OddTodd.
Here’s an idea, save $6 million a year by getting rid of Todd’s propaganda machine, the Communications Department. Let’s go back to the days when there was not a person between a department and the public, let the city departments and officials speak for themselves and get rid of the useless go-betweens.
Yes please. It’s part of the *legacy* of Jerry Sanders who ordered employees not to answer questions from members of the public. I used to be able to call any department and get just about any question answered – straight up, over the phone. Since then, you can’t even get an honest reply to a filed Public Info Request – but they sure spent some bucks on the software to manage the public.
I didn’t know it went that far back. We need a story on that department. Any information you have about the Communications Department history would be welcome, Carolyn. You can email The Rag and send the information there or get my email from there and we can communicate that way.
How about stopping the waste of money for the cute, inefficient, round abouts, and bike lanes very very few riders use, they’d rather ride in the now more narrow traffic lanes, start charging the contractors of the ugly multi story apt/condo developments the same fees the residents get charged (DIF or Development Impact Fees).
OddTodd is SD’s deficit.
Why the heck wasn’t he booted this last go ‘round?
All the state tax money sent to us from Sacrament that can’t be accounted for – except for 2 programs there no data kept on where it went – did not just disappear, it went into someone’s pockets. This whole “homeless” thing is turning into scam on public funds. Some who have benefited or are will benefit are past owners of Ash Street and the guy who own the property where General Dynamics use to be. Turning that into a 1,000 bed flop house for “homeless” sounds like a swell idea – what could go wrong. I’m sure present owner will be thrilled to get rid of it.
“non-essential overtime”!!!! Give. Me. A. Break. Who makes that decision? People who are conflicted and willing to grant overtime instead of scheduling it during regular hours. They always have something else to do during regular hours. And that becomes the argument for more staffing – which is often justified. But before you do that, you should double-check the scheduling horizon and have real definitions of timing requirements. There are some things have to be done by a specific date, and others not so much. I’m not convinced that they allow members of the public to schedule things 90 days in advance for instance. I digress. Am watching with interest who are the adults in the room. Where are the negotiations taking place even? The reason they lost the tax increase is only because just enough voters who make to the polls noticed it’s a straight-up tax increase being promoted by the Muni Employees Union to help pay for their raises with minimum other enforceable restrictions.
Here’s an example of what the city considered “essential overtime.” I went to Dog Beach about 9:30 Labor Day morning. I was greeted by a loud machine sound and saw that three city employees were working on the concrete paw that is the entrance to Dog Beach. One was operating a loud blower, blowing sand off the concrete send clouds of dust everywhere. This, the very morning of the holiday. I emailed Parks and Rec and asked whose idea it was to have three city employees, on triple time, doing this the morning of the holiday. Theire response:
“The Department operates continuously to address cleanliness and safety issues including weekends and holidays. For the specific issue you raised, Mayra and I will check to see what work was underway when you observed staff operating equipment. We will get back to you with a response.”
Eight days later, after prompting, I received this response:
“As noted in our initial response, the department operates continuously to address cleanliness and safety issues, including weekends and holidays. To promote safe path of travel, clearing sand from walkways is one of the routine duties performed by maintenance staff along shoreline areas. The demand for maintenance is greatest during holidays. Staff assigned to work this location on the Labor Day holiday included one full-time employee and two part-time hourly employees.”
The part that really blew my mind was, “The demand for sand removal is greatest during the holidays.”
I pointed out that the sand was there days, weeks before the holiday. Instead of having a crew stirring up dust with a roaring machine on the actual holiday when everyone is trying to get on the beach, maybe that could have been done the week before everyone showed up. And on regular time.”
I got crickets. Guess I don’t understand “essential overtime” very well.
Now is the winter of our discontent.
101 Ash Street Midway Rising Homeless Non Solutions & Strategies Road Diets & So Much More
Concur with all the comments. Lets take 1/3 of the desk jockeys making 6 figures and put them on the street. The ones hired as friends & relatives who are twiddling their thumbs when they aren’t reinventing the wheel or creating nuisances like street calming and curb extensions. I really feel that bloat in the offices is a huge issue.
Why is Gloria “suspending all nonessential overtime” NOW? It should have been suspended on Day 1 of taking office years ago. The city needs to trim some serious fat from inefficient administrative jobs that are rampant in the city government. The taxpayers rejected the Sales Tax increase because the city government is fiscally incompetent. Remember a few years ago when the taxpayers had to pay over $1 million just to install an ADA compliant ramp at Dog Beach? $1 million for a 20 foot concrete ramp. Absolute insanity.
Does this mean that Todd Gloria will not be able to fly to China if the zoo gets anymore pandas?
LOL
Ofc Toad will go where he is most useful on our dime.
The sad thing is he never mentioned this deficit while campaigning. This is an important fact that we as voters should have known before submitting our ballot
I feel misled
The funny money for Toad (of measure E) would have bailed him out to spend how he wished (Kettner & Vine). He was already battling deficits previously, no secret there. The incoming city attorney Ferbert needs to step up for taxpayers and investigate this pay to play for Midway Rising and the SDSU arena deal that was quashed. But her campaign mgr is a conflict of interest.
Todd has the gall to assert “We’ve seen this before. We’ve been here before!” Then why are we here again!! Is he some kind of a fiscal masochist? No, it’s simply that he doesn’t know how to manage a budget and manage staff to insure that expenses equal income! Where was he in supporting and promoting Measure E? Did he speak up when then Mayor Sanders, illegally took city employees out of the collectively negotiated and contracted retirement program? The California Supreme court declared the Sanders change, UNCONSTITUTIONAL! How many of his high paid, enormous staff will he cut? to set an example of belt-tightening?
“It was a great deal for taxpayers,” McGrory testified during a legal deposition held in downtown San Diego last week. “[But Mayor Gloria] said he was serious about pursuing the Midway project,” McGrory added, referring to the City’s selection of a Gloria campaign donor Brad Termini to redevelop the existing sports arena site in the Midway area that will require hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies.
https://laprensa.org/gloria-dismissed-proposal-free-sports-arena
Maybe shave down some of that record MTS budget upcomming.