Brown's bogus budget
More money for the cops, less for the kids

By A.C. Thompson

Like a smart corporate CEO, Mayor Willie Brown stressed the I-feel-your-pain message when introducing his proposed 2002-03 budget June 3. "I say to you this is a fair budget for very tough times," the mayor told the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. "It is the budget I hoped never to have to present."

Faced with the dot-com implosion and the national economic nosedive, Brown is dealing with shrinking tax revenue for the first time in his six-year term in office. And man, is it shrinking: the mayor's proposed budget for next fiscal year is $380 million smaller than the current budget.

But a quick look at the numbers shows the mayor is feeling the pain of some San Franciscans (especially city employees) a lot more than he is others. And Brown isn't asking anyone at the top of the economic spectrum to pay more taxes.

The police and fire departments actually got hefty budget increases. Police are slated to get $24.5 million in new funding, bringing the department's total allotment up to more than $308 million. The budget would spend less on equipment and fringe benefits and put $27 million more into salaries.

"We're going to make out fine," assistant police chief Earl Sanders said. "We're going to try to maintain staffing at the maximum levels."

The fire department did handsomely as well. The firefighters would get $6.8 million tacked onto their budget. Thanks to more number juggling, the department is slated to get $9.2 in increased wage and salary spending.

Other departments aren't doing quite so well in the proposed downsizing, which would slash the overall municipal budget from $5.2 billion to $4.9 billion. Brown is planning, for example, to yank $3 million from the Children's Fund – money set aside for educational programs and social services for kids.

Not surprisingly, Margaret Brodkin, the executive director of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth – the group that convinced voters to establish the Children's Fund in 1990 – was furious. "This is a shell game," Brodkin told us. "I should have our attorney look into this."

In fact, the cuts fall disproportionately on the departments that serve the lower end of the economic spectrum. The Department of Public Health is slated to lose $28 million in city funds. The Recreation and Parks Department – which is supposed to offer "quality, accessible and affordable recreation programs" for kids – is looking at a loss of $7 million. Muni's facing $11 million in cuts.

The scandal-plagued Elections Department is looking at $337,000 in cuts. The Academy of Sciences is getting hit for $200,000. But the 48 people who wash clothes and linens at Laguna Honda Hospital really got hit: the mayor is planning to lay them off and pay private contractors to do the laundry.

Brown said the looming layoffs hurt him. "To lay a laundry worker off is like laying off a relative," he said.

The mayor's 328-page budget still has to be approved by the board, and it'll be interesting to see what the final product looks like. In 1999 when Brown proposed adding 224 cops to the force, he met the strongest opposition from conservative supervisor Leland Yee, who saw it as a waste of money, given the city's plummeting crime rate. In the end, though, Yee lost.

The current budget proposal reflects the way San Francisco politics so often works: The cops and firefighters get what they want. Big business and the wealthy get left alone. And the kids, the elderly, and the sick get the shaft.

Will the new, more progressive board go along with that?

E-mail A.C. Thompson at ac_thompson@sfbg.com.