For years, leaders at all levels of government have played budget shell games, relying on accounting gimmicks to cover-up a failure to address the underlying structural problems. This has been true over the last decade in San Diego. While the current mayor has made progress addressing this problem, it is clear that moving forward San Diego needs a new approach for how we allocate and account for our hard-earned tax dollars.
The current process doesn’t encourage efficient use of tax dollars, doesn’t take into consideration which programs work and which ones don’t and, most importantly, doesn’t take into account the needs of its customers – the residents and taxpayers of our city. We must change that.
As a state legislator, I’ve studied best practices by governments at every level, and I’ve found successful strategies that work to reduce waste, improve service levels and increase transparency. Today I’m sharing with you the ten budget principles I will use to develop and manage our city budget when I’m mayor.
You can download the full plan here, but an overview is below.
I understand that in political campaigns talk is cheap and plans are a dime-a- dozen. So I ask you to consider not only my plans, but my proven track record of bringing diverse groups together to get things done.
When I set goals, I achieve them. It’s time to turn the page at City Hall and bring new generation of leadership to San Diego.
Semper Fi,
Nathan
Fletcher Budget Principles for San Diego
1. Performance-based budgeting: The budget should track department outcomes and link performance to operations to enable the city to create incentives for improvements and accountability for performance.
2. Innovation: Use technology to deliver services more efficiently, to increase transparency and to eliminate fraud and abuse.
3. Creating jobs: City policies and regulations should encourage job creation, which in turn creates more revenue for the City.
4. Collaborate: Make City employees a part of the process of reform by soliciting their ideas and empowering them to make change.
5. Planning for the future: One-time revenues should be used only for one-time expenditures.
6. Legislative transparency: The City should require a fiscal impact statement for all Council actions so that the legislation’s merits can be debated with an understanding of its costs.
7. Efficiency: The City should explore regionalization of services and partnerships with other jurisdictions to provide services in the most efficient manner possible.
8. Encourage competition: Reform the purchasing and contracting process to ensure the City gets the best deal possible for goods and services.
9. Transparency in cost: The budget should present the true cost of government activities and include activity-based costing so the public can judge the true, total costs of government activities.
10. Accurate, reliable predictions: The Mayor, IBA and Council should be held accountable for accurate revenue forecasts that produce realistic budgets and reduce politicization of the revenue forecast.