Lockwood Offers ‘Austere’ Budget of $704 Million to Run City

Portending a year of painful austerity around San Diego City Hall, City Manager John Lockwood on Monday unveiled a proposed $704-million municipal budget for 1988 that calls for less frequent street cleaning, no brush removal from private property and an interruption of the city’s ambitious plan to beef up the Police Department.

Although the proposed budget is $65 million more than the current one, Lockwood stressed that monies used to fund police, fire, libraries, parks, street maintenance and other municipal services will be the tightest since the city had to make drastic cuts in the wake of Proposition 13 in 1979.

“This is a hold-the-line budget,” Lockwood said. “I guess if there’s a message this year, it’s that the resources just aren’t there to increase services.”

The belt-tightening talk comes as no surprise. Council members, who must now deliberate and vote on the budget, have been issuing verbal warnings to each other and the public about the anticipated cuts.

Gann Limit Blamed

Part of the problem, said Lockwood, is the Gann limit, a state measure that restricts cities from spending more than is allowed by a formula based on inflation and population growth.

Next year is the first time San Diego will bump up against that limit, which effectively prohibits the city from spending about $10 million. But Lockwood said he put the money in the budget anyway with the anticipation that city voters will approve a measure on the November ballot to suspend the limit.

The city is also losing $5.5 million in federal revenue-sharing funds and expects to make $3 million less in interest collected on tax receipts because of a change in the federal tax law, Lockwood said.

To help make up for those losses, Lockwood is proposing that the city sell the old Sears property in Hillcrest for $9 million. The property was purchased by the city as a proposed site for a new central library, but another location downtown is favored.

Even with that sale, Lockwood says, the city will have just enough money to squeak by.

As proposed by Lockwood, one of the casualties of the budget crunch would be the City Council’s ambitious five-year program to make sure the police force has two officers for every 1,000 citizens. Currently, there are 1.62 officers for every 1,000 residents.

Had the city continued in fiscal 1988 with the program, it would have required adding 140 sworn officers and 48.5 civilian personnel to the force at a cost of $8.3 million, according to Lockwood’s budget. He recommends instead that the city maintain the 1.62 ratio, adding just 23 sworn officers and 14 civilians at a cost of $1.3 million.

Other changes proposed in the budget include:

- Cutting back the frequency of sweeping streets. Lockwood proposes to eliminate seven positions that would mean residential streets would be swept three times a year instead of the current four. In addition, sweeping along tourist-oriented areas and major commercial streets would be cut 33%.

- Cutting $198,000 for 5.5 positions in the Fire Department to remove brush from private property. The program was voted by the council after the devastating Normal Heights fire, which destroyed homes bordering the slopes along Mission Valley.

- Eliminating a proposal to expand after-school recreation programs. This is a pet project of Mayor Maureen O’Connor and the council had talked about expanding the program to double the number of schools involved. Currently, there are programs at 48 sites. But Lockwood said there is only enough money to keep the program going at its current level.

- An additional expenditure of $1.2 million to rent office space outside City Hall to accommodate the expanding staffs of city departments.

In addition, there is a proposed increase of one staff person for Councilman Bill Cleator’s office. That is the only increase proposed for council staffs, however, and Lockwood’s proposed budget shows a modest decrease for the elected representatives, from a current $2.749 million to a contemplated $2.732 million in 1988.

Lockwood and Pat Frazier, the city’s financial services director, said Monday that austerity measures were necessary despite the budget increase.

Frazier said most of that increase comes from so-called enterprise funds, where the money is collected not from general taxes but from direct charges for city services. For instance, $38 million of the increase is for the Water Utilities Department for capital improvements, she said.

The City Council will begin its budget deliberations in May, with final recommendations due in the summer. The 1988 budget goes into effect July 1 and extends until June 30, 1988.