Page One

Jobs for youth and health services for low-income people are among the programs that made it to the proposed liberal/progressive budget presented at Tuesday night’s council session. The council will vote on the proposals next week. 

This year, the mayor opted out of the process. Generally Mayor Shirley Dean, part of a more moderate council block, submits proposals that are different from those recommended by the competing faction. 

Dean says at next week’s meeting, she will ask the council not to spend the $3 million that is available. Before allocating the funds, the council should set up a more rational funding process, she argued. 

There is little wiggle room for creative decision makers within the budget process. The city is at the halfway point in a two-year budget, with about $215 million budgeted for each of the two years. A little over half of the budget – about $114 million – goes for salaries and benefits for the city’s 1,600 employees. 

Most of the remaining funds are set aside for specific uses. The bond funds pay for the uses to which they are dedicated, such as remodeling the library, civic center and building the new police-fire building. Fees homeowners pay on their tax bills for sewers and refuse go for these services. Other funds are set aside specifically for street and sidewalk repair or to lease office space or equipment. 

In this fiscal year, which begins July 1, there is about $3 million in funds that has not been earmarked for specific uses. This is the only money that the council can spend. 

For the past several months various organizations have lined up at public hearings and written letters to the council, asking for funds for their causes. Agencies within the city have also requested funds. The result was a list of almost $19 million in requests. 

Maio said four of the five progressives – herself, Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek, Councilmember Dona Spring and Councilmember Kriss Worthington – met and sifted through the requests, eliminating some and reducing others. Councilmember Margaret Breland did not participate in the process, Maio said. If five councilmembers meet outside a formal meeting, they are in violation of the state’s open meeting laws. 

Among the bigger-ticket items proposed are: 

• $200,000 to match federal grant funds for which the city has applied, to meet the health needs of low income people. 

• $65,000 for dental services at school sites. 

• $305,000 toward making the City Council Chambers more accessible to people who use wheelchairs. In part, funds would be used to study whether it is best to build a new council chambers – one has been proposed at the site of the old police building on McKinley Street – or to upgrade the chambers in Old City Hall. 

• $180,000 for a summer jobs program. This is money which the city lost when the federal government restructured its summer jobs program. The state could fund this program, but that will not be known until the state budget is approved. 

• $118,000 for bicycle and pedestrian safety measures, which will be proposed by the Transportation Commission. 

• $185,000 for animal care, including staffing the shelter with a volunteer coordinator, a no/low-cost spay-neuter program, animal shelter improvements, animal adoption advertising and funds to Home at Last, for its animal rescue efforts. 

• $55,000 for the Telegraph Area Association. 

A number of the city manager’s requests became part of the proposed budget: 

• $400,000 to complete the city’s telephone system. 

• $500,000 to pay for the costs of the city’s Living Wage program. These are the estimated increase in costs that would be passed on to the city by businesses whose employees would earn higher wages mandated by the ordinance. 

• $40,000 for mandatory earthquake insurance. 

Among the requests that did not make it to the proposed budget are: 

• Funding costs exceeding the budget for the Aquatic Park play structure. The council recommended that the funds come from the city’s playground budget. 

• Funding apartment inspections for carbon monoxide was not funded. However, a fee-based program will be proposed. 

• Funds for sidewalk repairs and deferred maintenance, above the annual allocations for these services. 

• Funds for traffic signals in addition to those already in the budget. 

• Funding a new animal shelter. 

Maio said she and other liberal/progressives will look again at their proposal over the next week. They will take into consideration a request for funds by the Chaplaincy to the Homeless, which had neglected to submit a formal request for funds. They will also consider a request by Berkeley Trip, which sells reduced-rate bus and BART passes. The proposal funds the agency at half the level requested. The university matches the city’s funding. Representatives from Berkeley Trip said the agency will fold unless it gets full council funding. 

Maio and her colleagues plan to tweak their proposal. “It’s a first cut,” Maio said. 

To receive a copy of the proposed budget call Maio’s office at 644-6359.