My office is gearing up to protect our social safety net and infrastructure improvements needed in Distrct 9 as the city seeks to balance the 2012-2013 budget. We look forward to working with you and the Mayor's office between now and June when the Mayor presents his budget to the Board of Supervisors.

          The San Francisco annual budget is the most important policy document that comes out of city hall. How we spend and prioritize $6.6 billion each year determines everything from the services we can offer in our health clinics, to how many pot holes we fill, to the number of officers we assign to foot patrol beats in our neighborhoods. Our city is organized into nearly 60 departments. Some of those departments like the Airport and the Public Utilities Commission, are enterprise departments that fund their services almost exclusively from the fees charged to customers. Other departments, like the Department of Public Health and Fire Department, rely heavily on the city's general fund to run their programs and operations. When we face deficits in the city, cuts are made primary to general fund departments including those departments that create and manage San Francisco's social safety net.

          For the last decade, San Francisco, similar to cities all over the United States, has faced record deficits. In San Francisco, the deficit peaked in Fiscal Year 2009-2010 at $576 million. This year, we confront a deficit of $262.7 million and are looking ahead to another deficit of $375.3 million in Fiscal Year 2013-2014. A decade of program cuts to fill these enormous deficits has been devastating to city funded community groups that serve lower income San Francisco residents. While it continues to be difficult, I am proud of the way my office has worked with residents and community groups in District 9 to preserve the core components of our social safety net as we struggle to balance the budget each year.

         Last year, we organized early and effectively as a district and we intend to do the same this year. We had several meetings with dozens of community groups to develop a set of budget principles that the group delivered to the mayor. The mayor formed a CBO advisory committee and we were honored to have District 9 represented by Ana Perez, Executive Director of CARECEN, Mario Paz, Executive Director of Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, and Estela Garcia, Executive Director of Instituto Familiar de la Raza. Ana, Mario, and Estela were extremely effective in advocating on behalf of all District 9 organizations and in preventing many cuts to crucial after school youth programs, activities for seniors, homeless services, and violence prevention programs.

          We intend to help facilitate a similar community process this year. The mayor releases the budget on June 1st. In January, the mayor released his budget directives to city departments asking all general fund departments to decrease their total budgets by 5% and to develop a set of contingency reductions at the level of 2.5%. This is an improvement from the last few years, when departments were told to reduce their budgets by 10% with a 10% contingency reduction plan. However, the cumulative impact of decades of program reductions is a challenge - to say the least. In the next few months, I will be holding a series of meetings to organize our collective voice so we make sure that District 9 remains safe, healthy, and vibrant for everyone. If you are interested in participating in this process, please contact Hillary Ronen in my office at 415-554-7729 or hillary.ronen@sfgov.org.

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