By Paul Krueger / May 21, 2025
I listened politely, and with compassion, as speaker after speaker at the San Diego City Council’s May 19 Public Budget Forum pleaded, begged, and demanded that the Mayor and the Council protect our libraries, parks and rec centers.
I totally agreed with all the advocates. But it was Francine Maxwell’s comments that best expressed my position on how to balance the city’s budget. And that’s why I used my one-minute public comment to urge the Council to follow her sage advice.
Francine’s powerful presentation is posted here. I will summarize it in a few words: “Cut positions, not programs.”
It’s shameful that our Mayor and Council think their job is to save every position for every city employee, especially when the tradeoff is the loss of valuable, even life-saving city programs and services.
We must remind our elected officials that they are not union shop stewards or the employer of last resort for the City’s bloated middle management. They represent taxpayers, not city employees. Yet none of them has championed the common-sense solution of trimming positions – even temporarily – or taking any other time-tested solution to reduce payroll expenses while sparing public services.
While I waited my turn to speak, I did some quick Internet research.
The findings confirmed Francine’s lament that “The city values bureaucracy over neighborhoods. It protects middle-management and redundant executive positions while gutting services our communities rely on.”
Management positions at the city have increased by 461 percent in the past decade: In 2015, the city had 70 “program managers” and “program coordinators.” That number has increased to 393!
And that enormous 461-percent growth in management coincided with just a 20-percent growth in overall city staff.
Encouraging early retirements and buyouts, cutting a portion of management jobs, reducing work hours, and/or instituting some form of job-sharing would easily save enough money to keep our libraries, rec centers, and public restrooms open, maintain our beach fire rings, and staff our police and fire departments.
The Mayor and Council also need to make their own sacrifices.
City Council staff has grown from 149 to 160 positions in the past two years. The Council’s budget has increased by $3 million from FY 2024 to FY 2025.
The Mayor’s office will have 27 positions, with a $4.5 million budget, in FY 2025.
The solution to San Diego’s budget crisis is not cutting programs or increasing revenues by making residents – especially our lower-income families – pay more for parking and other programs and services.
A much more “equitable,” sensible, and time-honored solution is to reduce expenditures, starting with upper and middle-management.
Or, as Francine said, “We should not be paying executive-level salaries while cutting basic services. It’s time to get serious about right-sizing this organization from the top-down, not the other way around.”
Paul Krueger is a founding member of Neighbors For A Better San Diego and the San Diego Community Coalition.
Paul Krueger, I appreciate your support of Francine Maxwell’s suggestions.
It’s seems that somehow the council is afraid of brainstorming and coming up with alternative solutions.
Shannon
The Council doesn’t have to go to far to find places to cut: the 200-plus mid-manager positions making 6-figures.
Having been staff who worked at the City, i have always been amazed at the high number of Assistant Deputy Directors, Program Managers, Asset Managers, Special Project Managers that the City is funding, multiple teams who perform similar services, lack of transparency of not publishing organization charts, 2 Confidential Execute Assistants for the Mayor, and a 17 person Department working solely on the vision that San Diego can confront the most complex and uncertain challenges of today and tomorrow (data access, Get it done, and process improvement)?
Thanks, Paul!
For perspective, cutting one middle manager would be enough to save the fire rings!
Thank you Sue. That’s just what occurred to me when they said it would save $135k to close down fire rings… it’s less than ONE city exec makes in a year. They just want to hit us where it hurts the people, while NOT touching our bloated city employment. And, please check my math, but $135K is 0.0005% of the $259M deficit… it is going to take a lot of fire pits to make a dent in our deficit.
https://www.instagram.com/richardbailey__/
Former Coronado Mayor has some opinions.
But what would we do without the creators of street calming, extended curbs, unused bike lanes, and budget errors making those $ix figure$?
https://transparentcalifornia.com/pensions/san-diego-city-employees-retirement-system-sdcers/
I appreciate Paul Krueger’s damning statistics about the growth in city staff.
I second Francine’s call to “right-size” City government and keep the libraries open!
Excellent article Paul. I didn’t vote for the “strong mayor form of government”, totally because I thought, if the voters voted in a “wing nut”, we’re doomed. And here we are….. Does it really take 27 head bobbers in Gloria’s office for him to decide if he’s going to further destroy SD with his decisions, No! A lot of money could be saved by closing the City Council. With the strong mayor form of government, the mayor doesn’t have to follow the Council reps, and routinely doesn’t. So really what are they there for? They no longer represent their constituents, they do what Gloria tells them to do. When he was elected the first time, within a few days of being the strong mayor form of government, he doubled his and the city council reps salaries. Who knows what other perks he decided to give who.
The only one that I’ve seen stick up for his constituents, is the D4 Councilman, Henry Foster. Apparently he’s not afraid of Gloria cutting his D4 budget. When SD had a City Manager form of government the council reps actually did work for the constituents, and decisions were NOT made by the Mayor. All department heads, and several layers of supervisors, are trying to keep their jobs. They are not represented by any Union, and work at the “will of the mayor”, so they can be fired by the snap of the mayors fingers. Is it no wonder they go along to get along?
We need caring people and full full time operting libraries 7 day a week libraries we do not need u caring politicians like tne MAYOR AND OTHERS