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Armed with a report that calls for slashing the city’s workforce by up to 35 percent, a team of Berkeley budget hawks launched its campaign Tuesday against a proposed $8 million in new taxes on the November ballot. 

“I can’t imagine how they would ask us to pay more, when they haven’t done enough to cut back,” said Trudy Washburn, a member of Budget Watch. 

The group, which includes former Mayor Shirley Dean, was formed earlier this year by homeowners concerned that city taxes were going through the roof.  

Although Budget Watch claims political independence, most of the 10 members listed on its budget analysis have long ties to the more moderate faction of Berkeley politics and many are involved in the Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations, which has also come out against the taxes. 

The group’s report charged that tax hikes were unacceptable as long as the city fails to tackle its bloated bureaucracy, search out new streams of revenue and reform its budget process. 

Since falling into the red in 2003, Berkeley has cut $14 million and eliminated over 100 positions. Still, the city faces projected deficits of $7.5 million in fiscal year 2006, $3.4 million in 2007 and $2.4 million in 2008 and 2009. In addition to a slumping economy and decreased state aid, the city has suffered from skyrocketing pension rates which have jumped 136 percent since 2003 from $5.8 million to $13.7 million. 

To close the city’s structural deficit without raising taxes, the group proposes that the city: 

• Reduce the number of city positions from 1,641 to between 1,000 and 1,300. 

• Compel city workers to give back more of their salaries. 

• Redesign the budget process to establish funding priorities and evaluate programs. 

• Demand that nonprofits and UC Berkeley pay at least a percentage of city fees and assessments. 

Their proposal comes just one week after Mayor Tom Bates released his Fiscal Recovery Plan, which argued that new taxes were essential to retaining public safety jobs and programs for youth and seniors. 

Bates argued it was Dean who deserved the blame for the city’s budget problems.  

“It’s disingenuous to be criticizing us for a problem she created,” he said. 

As mayor she signed the current round of union contracts that granted employees generous raises and improved retirement benefits. 

Bates said the Budget Watch recommendations were old news and the city was already pursuing many of them, including a new budget process and seeking added new revenues from UC.  

Also, the city won about $1.2 million in employee givebacks last year, but as part of the deal it negotiated away its right to seek further concessions for the duration of the contracts.  

Dean charged that the city’s right to re-open the contracts was crucial and that the city had squandered valuable negotiating leverage. 

Just because Budget Watch opposes new taxes doesn’t mean it wants to cut spending. For the current fiscal year the group actually proposed spending $900,000 more than the plan adopted by the City Council, with the money mostly earmarked for the police and fire departments.  

The group is opposed to closing a fire truck company and leaving seven police positions unfilled, both slated for the chopping block if city voters reject a 1.5 percent increase in the utility users tax.  

Also on the ballot are a 19 percent increase in the library tax, a 59 percent increase in the paramedic tax and a 0.5 percent increase on the transfer of properties that sell for over $600,000. 

If voters approve the new taxes, along with other local measures, Budget Watch estimates that average homeowners with a property valued at $243,00 would see their local tax bill jump from $4,879.62 to $5,240. For recent homebuyers whose homes are valued at market prices, Dean said they would pay upwards of $10,000. 

She warned high property taxes would remake Berkeley into a city of the very rich and very poor.  

To lessen the burden on taxpayers, Budget Watch wants to slash the city’s workforce. City workers currently fill 1,641 positions, comprising 75 percent of general fund expenditures. Last year their city-funded pension benefits amounted to 60 percent of the $10 million deficit in the city’s general fund.  

Berkeley has one city employee for every 62 residents—the most employees per capita in the East Bay. Budget Watch estimated that if Berkeley pulled even with Oakland, which is number two on the list with one city employee for every 95 residents, the city would have 1,073 full time equivalent positions and save $32 million each year. 

The long-term trend in Berkeley, however, has been towards adding positions, even as the city loses residents, the Budget Watch report concluded. 

Since 1980, it found that the city has added 237 positions while seeing its population drop by 18,000. 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who is supporting two of the city’s four tax measures, lauded the group’s effort. 

“They should be commended for putting these issues into the public debate,” he said. “It’s as good as any staff report we get.” 

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