San Diego Mayor Proposes New Spending Increases in the Budget – UCSD Guardian

On April 15, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria proposed to spend further funding for present packages, the humanities, homelessness, parks, and boosting San Diego residents’ high quality of life. This proposed finances would begin July 1, 2022 and would improve metropolis spending in areas that embody massive infrastructure initiatives. 

With the approval of the proposal, the annual working finances of town would rise from $1.74 billion to $1.89 billion. Funding for the mayor’s finances will increase will come from elevated tax income and $180 million from leftover federal pandemic support. San Diego’s annual pension cost can also be lowering by $31 million due to sturdy inventory market returns in 2020. 

The finances would make small will increase to many packages and initiatives already in place, together with cleansing up sidewalks, growing safety in libraries, and policing trip leases. It’ll additionally improve support for small companies, broaden free web entry in low-income areas, and add new parking enforcement groups.

Furthermore, the finances allocates virtually $300,000 to create a brand new administration heart the place metropolis officers would survey intersections and instantly change stoplights relying on the variety of automobiles to scale back the quantity of site visitors in SD. It’ll additionally spend $550,000 to create a brand new staff who will change outdated sign loops. 

John Muir School junior Zahrah Mahmood instructed The UCSD Guardian that she believes this new methodology can be helpful for anybody that’s driving in La Jolla by lowering the period of time individuals spend on the highway.

“Visitors in La Jolla is commonly very unhealthy and [I am] hopeful that the brand new finances will make site visitors congestion so much higher,” Mahmood stated.

When it comes to the humanities, funding would improve from $9.6 million to $12.7 million. The town plans to spend $4.3 million to recruit extra workers with higher coaching in native parks. In addition they hope to transform lots of the part-time staff to full-time.

San Diego’s spending on lowering homelessness would improve from $49 million to $63 million. The funding can be positioned in direction of new shelter beds and stronger avenue outreach efforts. About $20 million would come from town, $3 million from the federal authorities, and $40 million from the state — a rise from their earlier combination $24.5 million spending.

The town’s normal fund reserve will nonetheless be $205 million underneath Gloria’s proposal, which might change into essential within the case of an financial recession.

Moreover, $13.3 million can be allotted to cowl the anticipated pay raises for cops, firefighters, and lifeguards. The town additionally plans to extend the earnings of the employees that make lower than their counterparts in different cities.

Presently, there are virtually 1,800 vacant metropolis jobs out of the whole 11,940 budgeted positions. Metropolis officers declare that that is due to uncompetitive salaries. 

The town plans to commit $28.4 million to infrastructure underneath Proposition H, which might cowl the $16 million for upgrades to parks, $7 million for sidewalks, and $2 million for fireplace stations. One other $29.7 million will cowl flood prevention and efforts to scale back air pollution in stormwater. 

San Diego plans to make use of $120 million of the federal pandemic support in the course of the ongoing finances yr, which nonetheless leaves $180 million. Gloria plans to spend $124 million within the subsequent finances yr and the remaining $56 million in 2024.

Art work courtesy of Michelle Deng for the UCSD Guardian.