Politics

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / KCBS / BCN) ― San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on Thursday called the city's $500 million-plus deficit "staggering."

In his first extensive interview since dropping out of the California governor's race, Newsom wanted to talk solely about the city's budget plight, but CBS 5 pushed him to answer questions about his uncharacteristic absence from the public limelight since ending his gubernatorial bid.

Newsom seemed to be agitated and annoyed at the questioning, proclaiming that he had made 69 public appearances since his decision to quit the race for governor - although his staff could not provide specific details about those appearances, which were not reflected on the mayor's public schedule.

The mayor added that he had been hard at work on city business - including the budget deficit - since ending his campaign for governor. He maintained he only left San Francisco for two days for a quick jaunt to Hawaii to unwind.

With cameras rolling, Newsom referred to recent negative media coverage by telling CBS 5: "Off the record I'm amazing disappointed, amazingly. I just am. Professionally, you know."

In terms of the city's finances, Newsom acknowleged that San Francisco faced a "big deficit."

After five years of shortfalls, the mayor didn't offer any immediate solution for the budget woes. His lack of specificity during the interview with CBS 5 suggested that the city had exhausted the easy solutions and this time around a budget fix was going to be much more challenging.

After the interview, Newsom asked the heads of all city departments to trim their budgets by 20 percent, and prepare to cut an additional 10 percent, after his office projected a $522.2 million general fund deficit for the coming fiscal year.

The news from the mayor's budget office means potentially severe cutbacks to services, as well as layoffs, though a Newsom spokesman pledged to protect public safety.

"We're going to hold the line on police and fire," Newsom spokesman Joe Arellano said.

"We are looking at a gaping hole in our budget that is only going to be fixed with a real examination of our current way of providing services," he said.

Newsom told the departments to prepare for an additional 10-percent cut as a contingency plan, amid uncertainty about revenue the city will generate and about future cuts at the state level.

"And we can't count on the help that we had last year," Arellano added. He was referring to the more than $62 million in federal stimulus money that helped trim a $575 million deficit this summer, a scenario that will likely not be repeated next year.

Despite steep cuts to many city departments and hundreds of layoffs earlier this year, officials said after the approval of a $6.6 billion budget that core city services had been preserved.

"We were cut to the bone then," Board of Supervisors President David Chiu said earlier Thursday, before the exact deficit figures were released.

"At this point, we don't have anything to cut but bone," Chiu said. "It's going to be the most challenging budget situation that anyone has ever seen (in San Francisco)."

The mayor can still approve or reject individual cuts, so the likelihood that every department will actually lose 20 to 30 percent of their budget is slim. The cuts, which would go into effect July 1, would also require the approval of the Board of Supervisors.

Layoffs could begin sooner, according to Arellano.

The San Francisco Police Department would have to find a way to trim almost $47 million under the targeted 30-percent budget reduction.

The Department of Public Health, with the city's largest budget, would face $102 million in cuts.

Reducing the Fire Department's budget by 30 percent would incur more than $13 million in cuts; the Sheriff's Department would face almost $40 million in cuts and the Human Services Agency more than $28 million.

Other departments such as the juvenile and adult probation departments, the District Attorney's Office, the Public Defender's Office, and Recreation and Parks would face several million dollars each in cuts. Cuts would also affect the Fine Arts Museum, Asian Art Museum and Academy of Sciences.

"We're going to have to have everything on the table, and get creative," Arellano said.

For his part, Chiu said he would fight to protect "essential, core services" such as police, fire and health services to the city's most vulnerable, including seniors, the homeless and the mentally ill.

But even with Thursday's proposed cuts, it would still leave the city with a nearly $120 million deficit heading into the next fiscal year, according to Budget Director Greg Wagner.

"That's what we've got to figure out," Wagner said.

"Every year we come up with solutions that are in addition to the department targets," said Wagner. "And that's what we're going to have to do again this year."

The city is also facing a revised budget deficit, of $53 million, for the current year that must be resolved in the coming weeks.

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