Posted on Sun, Apr. 23, 2006
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/email/news/14410374.htm
LISA VORDERBRUEGGEN: TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR


Supervisors turn to budget

Contra Costa Supervisor John Gioia has for months downplayed critics' characterization of the county's financial woes as a "crisis."

It's a challenge, he often repeats, not a crisis.

After all, a $43 million deficit represents 3.5 percent of the county's $1.3 billion budget, nothing the county can't handle, right? We'll see.

The supervisors start budget deliberations this week and the inevitable parade of advocates for programs on the chopping block will be heart-wrenching.

It seems that one man's fiscal challenge is another woman's domestic violence counselor, boy's bed in a drug rehab center or a down-and-out man's homeless outreach worker.

These pleas have persuaded supervisors in the past four years to adopt budgets in which expenses outpaced income. As a result, combined with escalating employee health care costs and other factors, the county has nearly burned through its reserves and suffered two credit rating downgrades with a third on the horizon.

Last December, outgoing assistant county administrator Scott Tandy blamed the board for the grim financial specter and wrote, "It is an open question whether the political will exists to correct this trend."

It's going to be different this year, Gioia says.

The board will adopt a balanced budget, and unlike prior years, he says, none of the county's department chiefs will line up before the supervisors and dangle scary cuts over the public's head to drum up sympathy.

"The supervisors had a 'Come to Jesus' moment," said one staffer involved in the budget talks, "and the conclusion was that they had to fix the budget this year."

On its face, it would seem the supervisors don't have much choice.

Its rainy day fund is nearly dry and further credit downgrades could cost the county millions of dollars in interest fees.

If that isn't bad enough, a balanced budget on its own will not cure what ails the county's finances.

The county has been in contract talks with its unions for six months, but its draft budget includes no raises for the bulk of its workers and unions have rejected a wage freeze.

The outcome of this dispute carries significant fiscal implications because the bulk of the budget is salaries and benefits -- counties don't build ball bearings, after all, they hire humans that deliver services.

Union leader Rollie Katz says the county must cut managers, not frontline workers, which could resolve the budget deficit and still leave room for modest pay bumps. "It would be outrageous," he said, "if the board simply passes this proposal and doesn't ask the hard questions."

Labor opposition is a sticky matter for the supervisors that rely on union support, including Gioia and Mark DeSaulnier. Gioia has no opposition to his re-election, but DeSaulnier is running for state Assembly.

Behind the scenes, there's another force at play: His name is John Cullen.

Cullen took the county manager job in March, and this budget is the result of his professional advice and those of the members of the county's first-ever budget cabinet. The team included former county manager Phil Batchelor, a man renowned for his sharp fiscal knife.

If the board buckles to political pressure and substantially alters his proposal, it would be a body blow to the first major act of Cullen's administration.

While supervisors never want to rubber-stamp their top hired hand's brand, how long will Cullen hang around if his bosses toss aside his hard-fought proposal like an old pair of boots?

WASHINGTON OR BUST: After a two-week recess, the East Bay's congressional delegation heads back to the partisan centrifuge known as the Capitol.

As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, says her work in coming months centers on the Defense Department budget. It's a massive undertaking; the bill markup alone will take 18 hours.

She anticipates fierce debates on whether to hike the numbers of federal troops and military strategies in Iraq.

Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, says he will focus on a pension bail-out bill that will spur debate on how far the federal government should go to help save private firms' retirement systems.

And Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, chairman of the House Resources Committee, has another energy bill on his table.

Meanwhile, Pombo, the man environmentalists love to hate, is fighting back with his own Earth Day site at http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/earthday/index.htm.

With catchy little phrases like "Money grows on trees" and "Earth Day is Pay Day," the site promotes Pombo's oft-stated view that environmental groups don't save critters but instead use scare tactics to raise billions of dollars for mailings, lobbyists and consultants.

The site says that environmental groups collected $1.8 billion in revenues last year. And it lists CEO's salaries, such as the ex-National Wildlife Federation director at $472,829 a year.

Gee, those sound like big numbers until you compare them to the profits and CEO wages of the industries engaged in a policy tug-of-war with environmental groups.

Case in point: Chevron CEO Dave O'Reilly earned $5.2 million in salary, bonus and other compensation last year. And that doesn't include the $3.58 million in company stock.

THE DIVINE MS. ALLEN: Concord Councilwoman Helen Allen has put her house in Sacramento on the market and is shopping for a new Concord home, transactions that will douse the fire about her residency.

Readers may recall that folks bristled because Allen split her time between the Sacto house, her sister's Concord condo and a friend's Concord home.

"I didn't want my residency to be a campaign issue this fall when I run for re-election," Allen says.

But one has to wonder if divine intervention didn't prick her political conscience. Allen recently attended church in the Vatican as part of the installation ceremony of San Francisco Archbishop William Levada as a cardinal.

Lisa Vorderbrueggen writes about politics on Sundays. Reach her at 925-945-4773 or lvorderbrueggen@cctimes.com. You can also reach her through her online forum at www.contracostatimes.com. Click on "Talk to the Times."