Reversal of Fortune – San Bernardino Council Must Decide How to Spend Extra Money in Budget

After years of belt tightening and cutting necessary city services, some would say to not just the bone but the marrow, the San Bernardino City Council finds itself in the unusual position of having to decide how to spend a budget surplus.   The City is expected to bring in an additional $42 million dollars (estimated) thanks to the additional sales tax of 1% levied by Measure S which passed last election cycle.  The council will discuss how to use those revenues at the next council meeting.

A budget forecast was adopted by the council in May.  The debate about priorities was sometimes testy and the draft budget barely passed so discussions will likely be heated again as the council seeks to hammer out the details.

“The residents of San Bernardino want and deserve that we restore the basic services the City should be providing. We need to focus on public safety, well managed and maintained streets, clean and safe public spaces and other obvious priorities, if we continue to get increased revenue we can look at other things next,” said Mayor John Valdivia.

Arguments centered around whether the most important things were to cover the basics such as restoring staffing levels in many departments such as code enforcement and the San Bernardino Police Department. Or increase spending on other things like programming at the library system and adding additional efforts to increase diversity in the workforce of the City.

“The city should be taking a conservative approach to spending,” said Dr. Adrian Moore, Vice-President of the Reason Foundation and an expert in public finance.  “Funds that were not necessarily expected and might not continue at the same level should be used for catching up with backlogged and delayed projects, paying down debt and other basics that inevitably get neglected when budgets get tight.  Committing to large increases in staffing or spending money on items that are luxuries is a bad idea.”

The Mayor and Council will hold the next budget discussion on Wednesday the 16^th at 7:00 p.m.  The meeting will be held via Zoom.