Lobbyists plead for their piece of budget pie
CITY HALL — Santa Monica groups vying for a slice of City Hall’s $433 million pie made their last-minute appeals late Tuesday before next year’s budget was adopted.
Dozens of speakers associated with several organizations partially funded by City Hall took their turns at the podium to tell the Santa Monica City Council why their requests for a boost to their programming — hovering around $500,000 in total — should be squeezed in before balancing next year’s budget. “Miraculously,” according to some, the 2005-06 budget was approved close to midnight, with the council managing to honor many local lobbyists’ requests.
The new budget will go into effect on July 1.
Of the 36 individuals who spoke, some represented the arts affairs council, historical society, symphony, child-care providers, and homeless and traffic activists.
Councilman Kevin McKeown set the stage for the night’s daunting task after hearing from each of them.
“We have two lists, one with the things we’d like to have, and one with the list of our funding sources,” McKeown said. “Guess which list is longer?”
City Hall provided the council with a list of “trade-offs” — consisting of staffing positions and capital improvement programs intended to be filled in next year’s budget — but which could be altered by the City Council to fulfill some of the public’s requests.
City Hall had originally included the proposed positions and projects in the budget to restore levels of public services that had to be scaled back in previous years because of revenue loss during the recession.
City officials and individuals speaking at the Tuesday meeting have been hoping to take advantage of the strengthening economy as a basis for their requests. Santa Monica is expected to enjoy a nearly $12 million surplus during the next fiscal year, of which all but a few hundred thousand dollars had already been committed before Tuesday night.
Increased funding for issues and projects will be allotted in an attempt to permanently shore up recent funding decreases. Financial “restoration” is underway in the following areas: ■ $170,000 will be added for staff to address local homeless issues. ■ $60,000 will be added to assist the development of 1,500 infants needing child care in the city. ■ $50,000 will be added for another year to the Santa Monica Historical Society’s funding for a project underway to preserve information related to the city’s founding. ■ $50,000 will be added to the overhaul process to determine the historic value of Santa Monica buildings. ■ $41,000 will be added to local art grant funding. ■ $13,400 will be added to purchase 13 more breathing devices citywide to help people in emergency situations. ■ $12,200 will be added to help beef up Santa Monica Symphony children’s programming.
One-time funding projects will include: ■ $200,000 for Councilman Bobby Shriver’s concept of hiring a regional homeless secretary to help streamline the process to address homelessness between government agencies. ■ $75,000 to conduct an Ocean Park traffic/parking/crosswalk study. ■ $144,000 will be used to help with the historic building inventory process.
The City Council opted to reduce the following programming options from the originally-proposed budget in order to balance it: ■ $231,000 was taken out of capital improvement to re-pave seven city blocks. ■ $100,000 was taken from a borderline study to evaluate the re-furbishing needs of some neighborhoods. ■ $25,000 was taken from facilities maintenance improvement projects. ■ $23,000 was taken from City Hall’s contribution to the Santa Monica Festival, which staff said may have some impact on event planning.
The City Council said funds might become available throughout the year that could be used to re-direct money to those immediate sources.
The council directed staff to evaluate funding the programs first, or when funding is available.
“We did it,” Councilman Richard Bloom said to the rest of the council and staff, as the budget adoption and meeting finished after 12:30 a.m., more than five hours after it started.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 23, 2005. Read the original PDF.