In past blogs I have expressed my concern about the cost to our city of too much housing. Specifically, housing that does not pay its own share of revenue. One example I have pointed out—and constantly been the lone vote against—is affordable housing.

Sick leave payouts are part of the City of San Jose budget deficit problem. These payouts do not discriminate; every employee including management accrues sick leave, and if employed with the City long enough, will be eligible for sick leave payout when they retiree. One exception is that councilmembers do not accrue sick leave.

The Budget Valentine will be visiting with the Council today at 1:30pm. The Council is having a public study session that will be streamed on the Internet and broadcast on Channel 26. This meeting will include discussion of what cuts will be required based on the budget shortfall.

In my opinion, the Council made two great investments two weeks ago for our tax base and jobs. The Council provided $500,000 of Redevelopment Agency (RDA) funds each to Sunpower and Maxim, totaling a one million dollar investment for economic development. These two companies compete globally, therefore they could have chosen any other location in the world. 

As you may remember, two weeks ago I shared that the City of San Jose contracted with a public opinion organization to conduct a telephone poll of 1,000 residents. These residents were asked survey questions from Jan. 13 to Jan .17. In comparison to my web survey, the City did a “scientific survey” which means they called men and women from all council districts, different age groups, ethnically diverse, homeowners and renters who are likely voters. The company responsible is instructed to get a group that mirrors San Jose.

It is pretty common to hear from residents, when discussing our City budget: “But i pay my property taxes.” As I have covered before on a prior blog post, your property tax bill does not flow 100 percent to the City. Much of it is taken by the school districts, County, community colleges and special districts. (This does not include various parcel taxes, school bonds, hospital bonds, that are collected via your property tax bill.) Even with all these other government entities taking nearly 90 percent of your property tax, this remaining portion is the number-one source of revenue, by a large measure, for the City of San Jose.

The City of San Jose contracted with a public opinion organization to conduct a telephone poll of 1,000 San Jose residents. Residents will be asked survey questions about the budget and city services from Jan 13 to Jan 17.

The City of San Jose has adopted Civil Service Rules that state what is and what is not allowed in regards to employment. The City Charter allows for changes to Civil Service Rules by a Council vote, and does not necessarily require a city-wide election.

More than a year ago, the San Jose City Council was presented with renewing its Microsoft desktop licenses. This can be an expensive line item. We have spent over seven figures in the past for licensing alone on this item.  I thought to myself, and later spoke at the Council meeting, that there is no real competition for this purchase we were about to approve and wondered if we could do better. In the end, we got a government discount from a Microsoft reseller, but it was not truly competitive since Microsoft did not have any competition at City Hall.

San Jose is currently looking to find a Director of Economic Development.  As The City embarks on this search, what qualities do you feel this person should have? Should they have a background of some particular flavor like commercial real estate, a housing developer, former elected official, lobbyist, economist, academic, small business, large business, tech background, etc? Should they be currently employed at another city? Should it be a local city or further away? Should it be a young person with a limited track record but strong potential or someone with a strong track record making San Jose their final stop?

Last year, the council was faced with cutting the aquatics program down from ten pools to two due to the budget deficit. Stuck between a rock and a hard place the council invoked the “Unique Service Purchase” clause.

Tax Base Erosion Night lived up to its name last Tuesday at the Council meeting as a truck drove through the Employment Lands Framework. Council voted 8-3 to amend the General Plan and allow new townhouses instead of reserving land for jobs next to Santana Row. Thank you to Rose Herrera and Sam Liccardo for voting to hold the line and retain our tax base.

It is that time of year again, with lobbyists circling City Hall in preparation for the General Plan hearings.

With the leadership of Mayor Reed, modifications to our General Plan (GP) have been reduced to once a year, for the most part. At the GP hearings, applicants make their case as to why current land-use designations should be changed to allow for the applicant to build what they want, regardless of how the land is currently zoned.

The Public Safety, Finance And Strategic Support Committee took up the topic of unnecessary force in conjunction with drunk-in-public arrests. The police department, along with the city auditor, city manager and Independent Police Auditor, spent approximately 500 hours going through paper to pull out data. Inherently, a paper system is cumbersome and takes time to extrapolate data. Although we have a records management system, it is antiquated and unable to make queries that a modern system would, and it was not set up to manage certain historic data. This issue is indicative of our city’s lack of investment in information technology. 

Last Thursday, the council had a study session for San Jose’s 2010-2011 budget. The public meeting received little media attention. Perhaps, since the holidays are near, we only want to hear the good news…and next years budget is far from good. There is no dispute on the data—just the direction we shall choose to balance the budget. 

As city revenues have continued to decline, more money has been allocated to public safety both in real dollars and as a percentage of the general fund budget. Sixty percent of our general fund is allocated to public safety versus 40 percent 20 years ago. That 60 percent includes public safety pension costs and consumes our top four revenue sources combined: property tax, sales tax, utility tax and phone tax revenues.

In real dollars, San Jose spends $115 million more on public safety then we did 10 years ago, yet we have less personnel—while our population has grown from 950,000 to one million.