From the smallest city to the largest state, governmental
agencies throughout the country are struggling to balance budgets.
For the past two years, school boards, councils and transportation
agencies have looked at ways to cut expenses and raise revenue,
without sacrificing service.
From the smallest city to the largest state, governmental agencies throughout the country are struggling to balance budgets. For the past two years, school boards, councils and transportation agencies have looked at ways to cut expenses and raise revenue, without sacrificing service.
For most, it’s been their highest priority. Do we close a school, or cut after-school programs? Do we layoff police officers, or stop repairing potholes and trimming trees? Do we cut bus routes or raise fares? In the beginning, the cuts were fairly benign and had little or no impact on our daily lives.
Oh, but times have changed. If we thought things were bad two years ago, wait until next year. Caltrain needs to trim its $97 million budget this year by about $30 million. Proposed reductions would impact 5,700 midday riders, 2,000 night riders, and 18,000 riders who use the trains on weekends.
The city, which already trimmed $2 million from its general fund budget last year, is now looking at contracting its police services with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department to cut another $1.8 million this year. And, the school district, which has already trimmed more than $9 million in the past two years, will face another $6 million deficit next fiscal year.
In the past, elected officials set priorities and made decisions based on those priorities. Now, the really tough decisions are going to be made, and the public must re-examine our priorities and let elected officials know what we want from them. It’s down to basics and we need to examine everything. Not everyone will get help. Some are going to lose out. So where do we start?
Are you willing to close parks, eliminate outreach rides for the disabled and elderly, or reduce the number of police on the streets?
Perhaps Councilwoman Marby Lee put it best when she sometimes wishes the council could go back and reconsider some of its past decisions. Specifically, she said the city should have focused more on higher priority public services, such as public safety, instead of building new recreation facilities that it now has to maintain and staff.
“For a town our size, is that something we can afford on a long-term basis?” Lee said. “It’s not that I don’t like recreation, but can you do recreation at the expense of public safety?”
And that is the question. It’s now become need versus want, and we need politicians with conviction of principle to make those decisions, not the politics of expediency.
