Not that it’s the biggest news, nor unexpected in the wake of Monday’s announcement from the Controller that the city’s budget deficit woes aren’t over — to the tune of about $53 million in deficits we thought we’d balanced — but the Mayor’s Office has again asked all of its department heads to find ways to trim their budgets.
In a letter dated Tuesday from Greg Wagner, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s budget director, all city department heads are asked to wield the axe, and to do so swiftly: all departments will receive their reduction goals — i.e., a solid dollar figure by which their spending must shrink — on Thursday, and have been asked to submit their final plans for slimming down their budgets by Dec. 4.
“We recognize that this is a very tight timeline, and we do not expect all of your proposals to be fully fleshed out by that time,” Wagner wrote. “However, we need to begin to get ideas on the table as soon as possible.”
There’s a meeting in the Koret Auditorium at the SF Public Library in which all departments will be told, publicly, what the total expected city budget deficit will be. It starts at 10 a.m Thursday.
