Budget Analyst: San Diego's Income Doesn't Match Expenses

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published February 20, 2008 at 11:44 AM PST

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

San Diego's budget analyst says the city's budget has a long term problem: its income doesn't match its expenses, even in the good years. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

San Diego's budget analyst says the city's budget has a long term problem: its income doesn't match its expenses, even in the good years. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The city has already spent $200 million more this year than it has raised in revenues, and the fiscal year is only half way through.

Become a KPBS sponsor

Andrea Tevlin is San Diego city's independent budget analyst. She says, instead of focusing on fixing the budget deficit each year, the city council should tackle the built-in gap between revenues and expenses.

Tevlin: If you step back from the annual budget process and look at patterns that are developing over several years, you begin to draw conclusions that some new solutions may be necessary for the future.

Some members of the council's budget committee say it's time to explain to voters they must lower their expectations of what the city can provide in services.

Others say the solution is to ask residents to pay for trash service or vote for higher taxes.

Alison St John KPBS News.

Alison St John

twitter

Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.