City Council Scrutinizes Mayor Faulconer's Proposed Budget

Public hearings on Mayor Faulconer's budget for fiscal 2017 continue today and tomorrow. The 3.3 The $3.3 billion budget presented includes increases for street and infrastructure repair, expanded recreation hours, budget items into the climate action plan and increases the reserves. The mayor's proposal was greeted with praise, critics say the plan does not address several of the city's needs. Joining me are two city council members to speak with us. Chris Cate. Welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. And David Alvarez, thanks for being here. The independent budget analyst says the budget doesn't include any initiatives to him prove police retention and recruitment. Is that a recount -- concern? We are going to be looking at ways and opportunities to invest more dollars into our Police Department's dispatchers. You had the mayor say that in his budget he will look at funding to recruit and retain additional dispatchers. I think what we need to do next is to work with our chief of police, the police Association to determine ways to look at additional dollars getting into infrastructure needs or additional opportunities to increase the take-home pay or other benefits to try to attract officers into the department. I don't think it's an issue where we will have a civil -- silver bullet. It will be a program that takes a number of years to ramp-up and continue to invest in. You have a Council that's willing to invest more dollars. Councilman Alvarez, you have been vocal on compensation upgrades for police, including childcare. That's not in the mayor's budget. Will you propose a revision for that funding? Your question was do we have a problem -- we have a significant problem. The same or less, we will probably have less officers today than several years ago. They are leaving our department and not serving our public. We see crime rates increasing, we have an issue with the dispatchers, those are all severe issues that need to be analyzed. There's also the issue the sexual assault cases that aren't being processed quickly enough. I'm glad to see there's conversation to talk about 911 dispatchers. That is desperately needed. Public safety is at risk. We must do something fundamentally to change the future of the Police Department. Will you be proposing a revision? If I put out -- I did put out a several page long analysts, I'm asking the police chief, the mayor who are in charge of the department to let us know what we need to do to ensure our police officers stopped leaving. Compensation is not enough, it didn't keep the up -- officers here. We need good management practices, as well. As you say, Chris Cate, the Mayor says he will add additional funding later this month to ease the shortage of the city's 911 dispatchers. What kind of a boost to that funding would you like to see, Chris Cate? We were told last week that we would see an additional $600,000 put into our dispatchers and to look at additional ways to compensate them for their time. We were told is that the main revision will outline the funding, more details regarding the program and what needs to be funded to make sure the dispatchers will be online and we won't have the wait times. It has yet to be determined, the details. Councilman Alvarez where would you like to see the funding come from? Our priority as the city is to keep citizens safe. It should be whatever it takes to do that. No one should have to wait more than a national standard of 10 seconds to call 911 and get a response. I'm expecting to see everything that the chief end mayor can put forward, to ensure people are not waiting excessively long when they have an emergency. That doesn't help keep people safe. Whatever it takes. I'm expecting to see a substantial amount of focus on dispatchers, but also on the rape kits that have been backlogged in keeping our officers here. David Alvarez, if you don't see those revisions will you support it? It will be very difficult to support a budget that does nothing to substantially address those issues. Our primary focus, as elected leader, is to keep the public safe. Councilman Kate, what questions are still unanswered? Where we are going to be going in terms of funding for various programs, capital projects, moving forward. I think the budget is a good budget. You can't look at it from a single item, you have to look at it holistically. A lot of issues that we are seeing, whether it's streets or sidewalks, what have you, they don't happen overnight. It will take a lot of time to move forward and reinvest those dollars in the various communities. A lot of money is being reinvested into these communities to get things done. They are going to be smaller projects, council members will focus on them. I have a senior center in Claremont that only has funding to the end of the year, we are looking to try to extend those programs for our seniors. We will advocate for that and get funding for that. Overall, it's a great budget, we should are looking at ways to move forward and make sure the progress continues. We are halfway through the reviews, a little longer. We are going to ask questions to make sure the services that citizens want to see come to fruit -- fruition. Last year we made it better, we approve the budget with some changes that the Council provided input on. I think that's what we will see in the next couple of days. I've been speaking with Chris Cate and David Alvarez. Thank you both very much.