I’m curious to know how Jay Goldstone, the Chief Operating Officer of the City of San Diego, can state that the city has had “four years of significant budget reductions.”

This quote is taken from a memo that went around to city department heads on Monday.  Full memo can be found here (quote is in first paragraph).

Below are financial figures for the city by departments over the course of 2003 to 2009.  A few occasional departments show a sporadic reductions, but one doesn’t have to be financial wizard to recognize that they general trend is clearly increased spending year over year.  Such inaccurate language from someone so high up in the private sector would end their career.