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Mayor signs interim budget
By: Joshua Sabatini
Examiner Staff Writer
07/03/09 12:51 PM PDT
It looked at one point as though the only-slightly-important interim budget was going to be a large political fight.
But with the budget fight nearly over, the interim budget has fallen off the radar as a political punching bag.
Mayor Gavin Newsom did not veto the city and count interim budget as he had once threatened. He also did not submit it unsigned. He submitted the document, unchanged and signed, late Thursday.
The contentious part of the budget — a temporary budget used for about one month of the fiscal that begins July 1 — was that the Board of Supervisor voted to cut $82 million from public safety departments to send a message they meant business and were serious about “sharing the pain” when it came to Newsom’s budget proposal for the entire fiscal year.
Newsom was critical of the cuts and said the supervisors should not play politics with the interim budget.
On Wednesday, the board’s budget committee announced a deal with Newsom that did not include layoffs of police or fire fighters, ending the fight about the interim budget.
“We reached a budget deal that is mutually agreed upon with the board. There was some give and take, the mayor signed the budget for the month of July but he put the $82 million public safety funds on hold,” Newsom spokesman Nathan Ballard said. “There will be no cuts to public safety.”
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