San Diego reduces a certain bureaucracy of the city and dismissed the highest paid worker in the city to help close a deficit of $ 258 million, but mayor Todd Gloria has still not made any emergency discounts to the services that Some asked.
Gloria announced Tuesday that seven city services are merged into other departments, which saves the city of $ 5.3 million by eliminating certain high -level positions in the department and deputy director.
The departments that will no longer be independent include race and equity, cultural affairs, success of children and young people, sustainability and mobility, which focuses on climate change and bicycle tracks.
Gloria announced that he also eliminated the position of operations manager and dismissed the man who has occupied this job since the fall of 2022, Eric Darga, the best paid worker in the city. His annual salary was $ 383,000 and his advantages cost an additional $ 70,000 per year.
But apart from Dargan’s work, 29 of the 30 other posts eliminated by Gloria are vacant. This means that eliminating them provides no savings during the current financial year, the savings being only by the next fiscal year, when these positions had been planned to be filled.
Gloria seems to delay any proposal for service discounts, which many expect to include shorter hours in libraries and leisure centers, until it reveals its budget proposed for the new financial year in April.
This goes against the lobbying of the municipal council and the city’s labor leaders, who urged the mayor to make emergency cuts as soon as possible to potentially soften the deep cuts expected during the new exercise.
Gloria defended her approach on Wednesday, saying that her management team completely studies all of the city’s operations before offering cuts.
“It’s just the start,” said Gloria. “There is much more work to do.”
Gloria said that when the mother’s cuts are finally proposed, he suspects that the reaction will be “quite emotional”.
The largest union in the city, the Municipal Employees Association, praised the mayor’s announcement.
“The mayor Gloria deserves the merit of having done things to take up the moment of the important budget and operational challenges of the city,” said Mike Zucchet, director general of the union. “We are impatient to continue working with the mayor and his team to ensure that municipal services are aligned with available resources and priorities.”
Gloria has conceded that the $ 5.3 million in savings would not do much of a breach in the $ 258 million deficit planned for the new fiscal year.
But he noted that a plan to start invoicing unified houses for collecting waste in July should shrink this $ 71 million.
And the city could obtain an additional $ 30 million from an expected legal decision on a voting measure that would provide city money for the services and roads of the homeless.
In addition, the city recently doubled parking prices and plans to increase a wide range of costs from the city from April. These movements should generate more than $ 40 million a year.
If all these movements come together as expected, it would leave a deficit of around $ 100 million.
Gloria said he would like to protect himself from the four priorities: homeless services, infrastructure, public security and housing.
Gloria defended 25% of the increases in remuneration that most of the city employees received in 2023, that many criticisms blame for the major deficits with which San Diego is confronted.
“I think it’s appropriate,” said Gloria about increases, which gradually debate over three years. “We are not hemorragists as we have done before. We pay salaries and offer advantages to attract high quality talents to come here and serve the inhabitants of this city. »»
The mayor also defended the decision to fold the race and actions department, which the city created in 2020 after the outcry following the murder of George Floyd, in the city staff service.
“The incredible work accomplished by the department of race and equity since its creation has thrown a solid base of which I am extremely proud,” said the mayor.
He said that the other mergers do not mean that the city abandons the missions of these departments, just that work is being reorganized.
“None of this is a retirement signal for these questions or priorities,” he said.
The success of the child and young people merges in the library service, cultural affairs merger in economic development and sustainability and mobility will be cut and merged into three other departments.
Additional mergers include the mayor’s office, which resumes business, councils and government commissions and the office of the chief of the farm. In addition to Dargan, a program manager in this department has been dismissed.
Gloria refused to rent or even assess Dargan’s performance. He only said that “Eric Dargan is a good man – I liked to serve with him.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
