In a recent Open Forum article published by the San Francisco Chronicle, the city auditors for Oakland and Berkeley advanced the argument that city officials and citizens need to work together to define what the core services are for their respective cities: “Local government cannot afford everything it’s doing, so where do cities cut spending? To bridge budget gaps, lawmakers can choose either to implement across-the-board cuts-or they can define core services and cut strategically. Defining core services means aligning what services citizens expect with what cities can afford.”
Sounds simple enough…but it’s not. City Auditors Courtney Ruby and Ann-Marie Hogan go on to explain that the process is not that easy because some services are valued by certain residents more than others, and city services tend to create their own constituencies.
“Identifying core services must be a dispassionate process that involves the citizenry. Cities need to determine: 1) To what extent is government legally obligated to provide the service? 2) To what extent do residents expect the service to be provided? 3) What are the service’s direct and indirect impacts on residents?”
It would be a very illuminating and useful exercise to pass San Jose’s budget priorities through these same three questions, particularly the first one…“To what extent is government legally obligated to provide the service?” The City of San Jose spends all kinds of money on all kinds things that are not related to what most people would consider basic and fundamental core services, like keeping the streets maintained and opening park restrooms on weekends.
Just last week, we learned from the city manager that San Jose’s budget deficit has grown another $16 million. Roughly two month’s ago, the number cited was $100 million. In eight weeks, the deficit has gone up $16 million, or two million per week. Shouldn’t there be some increased level of concern about this on the part of San Jose city officials? Where’s the sense of urgency in addressing this problem?
“the process is not that easy because some services are valued by certain residents more than others, and city services tend to create their own constituencies.”
Intense minorities always scare politicians. Intense minorities prone to noise making, thus invoking the “squeaky wheel” political solution.
This makes it hard for politicians to actually cut anything, because doing so will certainly cost them votes. By “fairly” spreading the pain across all parts of the organization, politicians think that they are avoiding alienating their constituency.
There is a significant flawed assumption here, and that is that the only way to cut costs is to cut services (although I do believe the city is doing things that it should absolutely stop spending money on). There are other ways to skin the cat…reducing costs by changing the outsourcing rules, facilitating volunteer work, and enhancing workflow processes, to name a few.
Then there’s always the sacred cow of Employee Compensation…