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FY2002-2003 | FY2003-2004 | FY2004-2005 Budget Crisis 2005-2006 RPD is facing across-the-board additional reductions in their General Fund budget allocation from the Mayor's Office once again this year. They have been asked to absorb required wage & benefit increases ($2.3 million), a projected $1 million loss from 49ers revenues (low attendance), and another $0.5 million from one-time measures used to balance the '04-05 budget. They must also prepare a $1.5 million (5%) cut list as a contingency for possible additional cuts to be required. This adds up to a $4 million reduction for sure in RPD's budget from the General Fund and possibly another $1.5 million if the contingency kicks in. To fill the expected initial gap, the Department is proposing to institute additional operating efficiencies, eliminating vacant administrative staff positions, conducting various 'paper tricks' with salary savings and other budget practices, and promoting voluntary unpaid leave of staff (which obviously has service impacts). To fill the contingency gap will be much more difficult. Last year, the contingency plan proposed (but fortunately not implemented) was to make $833,000 in facility maintenance cuts and $1.2 million in park maintenance cuts. The latter is the possible budget proposal to watch carefully over the next month. Rec and Park is trying to raise some fees (Camp Mather) and perhaps a few others, and DPT is proposing to raise the parking fees, but these sources of revenue come nowhere near to offsetting the reduced General Fund cuts. Other critical budget information is the further depletion of the Open Space Fund. RPD is using the OSF to cover $3 million in required reserve funds in case there are reductions in property taxes due to pending appeals. This should be an agency-wide reduction and NPC questions whether it is even legal to stick the OSF with this cost and potential permanent reduction of the fund. On a second front, while the Golf Fund is projecting to repay the OSF for the first time since it was created 4 years ago, Commission President Murray requested that the staff prepare a priority list of the Golf Funds obligations since it was likely to assume that “not all would be paid." Guess what's likely to be short-changed once again? All of the above decisions are being made in the next month! RPD budget staff will present a budget to the Commission on February 17th for the Commission to approve and it will be sent to the Mayor's Office on February 22nd. Stay tuned for NPC's recommended budget actions. In the meanwhile, send your comments to RPD at Katharine.Petrucione@sfgov.org. « Back to District Park Planning |
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