City budget analyst calls for a "time-out"

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published January 29, 2006 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

This week, the city of San Diego starts the painstaking process of producing its first accurate budget in a long time. The city council's new "independent budget analyst" will set the stage for an aus

This week, the city of San Diego starts the painstaking process of producing its first accurate budget in a long time. The city council's new "independent budget analyst" will set the stage for an austere year ahead. KPBS reporter, Alison St John has more.

Andrea Tevlin, San Diego city council's new budget analyst, has collected eight different sets of budget priorities from the eight city council members, and she'll integrate those into a report to the mayor. Some council members say they hope to restore services cut in recent years, like community police or library and pool hours. But Tevelin says she will recommend a "time out" for the next fiscal year.

Tevlin: "Time out" does not mean not moving forward- time out means don't focus on new expenditures. It's moving forward in that we're going to get this budget accurate and true."

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Tevelin says she has serious concerns if it's viability to produce a comprehensive proposed budget for 2007, given the lack of clear figures from last year, and the need to work out how the new government structure will actually work. She says first the city needs answers to questions like "how big is the pension deficit really?, and which delayed maintenance projects simply cannot be postponed any longer. Alison St John, KPBS news.

Alison St John

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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.