Planning Department presents balanced FY2010-11 budget plan with deep cuts and fee options

San Francisco Planning Department Director Ram on Feb. 11 presented a proposed balanced FY2010-11 budget to the Planning Commission that staff said would total about $22,000,000 and require substantial reductions compared with the current year.

"This is actually a year that is actually fairly substantially worse than last year," Director Ram said, explaining that one-time solutions used in the prior year are gone and that the department must make trade-offs among services. Staff told commissioners the department faces roughly $2 million in reduced resources and that the proposed package would be balanced through a combination of labor concessions, modest fee changes, reduced work orders and grants.

Why it matters: Commissioners were asked to provide guidance this week and to vote next week because the department must submit a recommended budget to the mayor on Feb. 22. The proposal would preserve core permitting functions while reducing other activities and relies in part on fee adjustments and penalty revenue to limit cuts to code enforcement and the historic preservation survey program.

Key facts and staff proposals

- Total proposed budget shown to the Commission: about $22 million; staff said that represents roughly $2 million less than the current year.

- Staffing impact: staff said the proposal amounts to the equivalent of about 20 full-time equivalents (FTE) in time and dollars; Director Ram said, "that doesn't mean we will be laying off 20 people" but that the budget would show 20 fewer FTE.

- Fees and revenues: staff proposed a modest increase in fees (staff cited a 2.5% fee-revenue assumption and also discussed a CPI mechanism), targeted reallocation so larger projects would pay more, and an increase in code-enforcement penalties to help close the gap. Director Ram noted the consumer price index figure cited by staff was 2.61%, which would automatically raise fee schedules unless changed.

- Balancing package: staff described a mix of salary and fringe reductions recommended by a Joint Labor Management Committee, fewer work orders from other City departments, grant assumptions of roughly $500,000, and use of a citywide planning savings account (~$600,000) in the plan.

Division-level impacts and preservation options

- Neighborhood planning: staff proposed a reduction of about 7.7 FTE in the neighborhood planning division while trying to preserve application review capacity. The proposal reduces counter and support staffing and trims preservation survey work unless commissioners choose an alternative.

- Historic preservation: staff presented multiple options for the preservation survey program. Option 1 (proportional reductions) would reduce preservation staffing; an alternative would maintain or increase survey staffing to about 3 FTE (including two FTE for designations) by taking savings from public information and code enforcement; a more expansive option to fully staff designation work could require 10 to 11 FTE, staff said.

- Citywide planning: staff proposed reducing citywide planning by about 6.4 FTE, pausing general-plan updates (leaving ~0.95 FTE for required referrals), reducing sustainable-development work related to SB 375 to under 2 FTE, and concentrating on completing large, already-started plans such as Japantown and Transbay.

- MEA and environmental review: staff said environmental document work and training would be reduced (MEA down ~5 FTE), creating the risk of longer review times for some public and private projects.

What stakeholders said

- President Chase of the Historic Preservation Commission asked the Planning Commission to prioritize completion of preservation surveys and said the HPC would prefer not to recommend raising certain permit fees above a 4.65% cap for small and medium projects. Chase said surveys are essential because they provide CEQA-based protection and inform subsequent designation work.

- Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City, urged the department to rethink neighborhood planning scope, preserve sustainability and climate-action work, and complete transportation studies that would better calibrate fees and infrastructure impacts.

- Sarah Jones, a Planning Department staff member and Local 21 representative on the Joint Labor Management Committee, said labor and management worked together on proposals to reduce hours and minimize layoffs but warned the plan could still mean losing approximately six planning staff positions and reduced work time across the department.

Next steps

Commissioners instructed staff to return with a formal recommendation for action and were told the department plans to put the budget on the Commission agenda for a vote on Feb. 18 so the Commission's recommendation can be sent to the mayor on Feb. 22.