Potrero View: What’s larger than the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, Belize, Aruba and Jamaica combined, but not as much fun to frequent on a sunny day?The answer is the City and County of San Francisco’s budget, which is larger than the combined budgets of those six nations. It’s also bigger than 13 states and, at $11,100 per citizen, every American city per capita except Washington D.C.Since Ed Lee took office in 2011, which coincided with the end of the Great Recession, CCSF’s budget has increased from $6.4 to $9.6 billion. About half of that, $4.7 billion, goes to salaries and benefits, as the number of full-time municipal employees rose by 5,090 during the period, eclipsing the roughly 1,000 lost during the recession.Soaring costs of living triggers the need for higher salaries for City employees, and larger cost of living increases for pensioners. The average municipal employee now makes $108,774 in salary and $49,864 in benefits.
And the new mayor made it much worse
Controller Rosenfield told the View that, “in the big picture the City is performing better than most local governments.” While the retirement fund isn’t fully funded, as it was pre-recession, levels recently have been between 85 to 90 percent, which Rosenfield said wasn’t worrisome. That the budget is forecast to slip into the red in the next five years could prove problematic, however. “We are seeing an $800 million structural imbalance. About one-quarter of that is driven by pension,” he said.
We will get a recession and SF politicians will demand our legislature give everything to Soros for better management.
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