Survey Says…?

One of my favorite TV game shows was the original Family Feud with Richard Dawson. His big line was, “Survey Says!” when the survey answer was shared with the audience. I am pleased that my Budget Survey drew more than 700 participants. Thank you to those who engaged. It was long…but then our deficit is large, so the survey needed to at least attempt to grasp the entire budget.

This survey is not gospel—however, I think it is worth noting that some responses reflect a large consensus and we can discuss them.

Looking back I think changing responses from cut/do not cut to yes/no would have been better for some questions. The length of the survey could also have been shortened, even though the budget presents lots of choices.

Also if the survey had a visual meter that tracked how much money was left to spend or how much one needed to cut to balance the budget—that would have been ideal. That way you could track the deficit as you answered each question. I took a survey about a year ago on how to balance the California state budget that tracked the money as you answered questions on the survey—but I’m sure Sacramento spent more then the $10 I spent on this web survey.

Click here to view the Survey Responses: http://bit.ly/2009_San_Jose_Budget_Survey_Responses.

19 Comments

  1. Thanks for posting the results.  Very informative, and there’s a lot of unanimity of the issues.  The general tenor is to cut, so the city lives within its means, rather than rasing taxes and continuing the waste.  I’ll need to take time to read all 349 comments, which may be even more enlightening.

  2. Pierluigi,

    Thanks for the survey data – it’s quite refreshing to see just how much fat respondents are willing to cut.  It was of particular interest to me to discover that about 90 percent of us agreed that new hires on the city payroll should fall under a modified benefit plan.  If history is any gauge of the future, amoebas will grow arms and drive speedboats before our Mayor and City Council take up this issue. 

    On another subject, has anybody given thought to the “innovative” salary cutting method recently utilized by State and local governments?  Generally, cost savings are accrued via some number of furlough days per month, e.g., taking two Fridays off is roughly equivalent to a ten percent salary cut. 

    Well, guess what – the underlying pay scale is still in place and, when furloughs are suspended in the future, the savings will evaporate.  I’d much prefer to see permanent pay cuts, which will provide parity between public and private sector employees.  What do other readers think about this?

  3. The survey is worth about the $10 you spent. Not only it is too long for most ADD San Joseans to focus on, but the questions are loaded to illicit certain answers. Also, since in only a very few instances do you give any indication of what the impact will be if this service or that position is cut, people are answering the questions based on ignorance. Not the best way to get a sample of public opinion. In theory, the Mayor and Council are supposed to be educated about these issues and make their best decision based on their knowledge and input from professional staff. If you are really going to rely on this highly unscientific survey to base a decision on, then we are all in trouble.
    One example of how this survey is skewed, you throw the South San Jose police sub-station to the wolves without any information on how this station would or would not impact response times. The majority of the survey respondents are from D6 so what do they care if South SJ is protected or not? Part of the problem of the mini-mayor form of government, but that’s for another discussion.
    Too bad you couldn’t have made this a more useful tool, instead of just a tool.

  4. One question I would have like to have seen on the survey… “Should San Jose councilman continue to get 6 weeks off with pay each summer as they currently do?”

  5. Steve asked:

    “Should San Jose councilman continue to get 6 weeks off with pay each summer as they currently do?”

    yes, it is six weeks we don’t have to worry about stupid discissions to be made.  we need a break from the idiots for at least 6 weeks!

  6. #3 wrote:“Also, since in only a very few instances do you give any indication of what the impact will be if this service or that position is cut, people are answering the questions based on ignorance.” What survey did you take?  Most of the questions re personnel gave a dollar # of what the savings would be.

    #4—the longer they take off, the less harm they can do.

  7. There are no Council meetings in the month of July and so that is the best time for Council to take vacation. Many on the Council including the Mayor work some portion of July.

    Same is true for the Board of Supervisors, State Legislature and US Congress.

  8. #6 JMO.  $ savings is one side of the discussion.  The question I kept asking myself if I took the survey was what the impact on the community would be of the lost service.  Cut one person from code enforcement?  Out of how many?  What number of calls does each employee take?  How much longer will it take to respond to a call?  etc, etc.  The public can’t answer these questions on a simple survey.  The council needs to ask all these questions and then decide what sacrfices are worth taking.

  9. Why wasn’t eliminating the police helicopter an option?  If we really need a helicopter for some reason, we can borrow/rent the county’s helicopter.

  10. #7 wrote:“There are no Council meetings in the month of July and so that is the best time for Council to take vacation.”  That begs the question.  If they didn’t take the vacation, there could be council meetings.  How many of us get 4 weeks off in our first years on a job?

    So, what, magically nothing happenbs in July that would need council attention?
    #8, you make a good point.  But one thing seems pretty clear—even if it reduces service, more than a majority want a lot of things cut.  Why there was no question re—should we eliminate THE ENTIRE staa of Cultural Affairs is beyond me.  When our roads are crumbling, Cultural Affairs is an expensive luxury—16-18 employees doing WHAT—deciding where the bad public art will go?

    But then, #5 may have the better of the argument.

  11. 13 – There is no guarantee that they will be taking a pay cut. There are two (so far) conflicting proposals before them. One leaves salary and car allowance as is—no raise but no cut either. The other proposes a 3.75% cut and a reduction in the car allowance. After last week’s melodramatic performance by the Council I’d say this could go either way. In order to lead by example there has to be leaders and and the Council is in short supply of those.

  12. Survey Taker #13,
    Wow, you sure got up on the wrong side of the bed. Little grouchy after filling out the survey?

    Sorry, I guess we will have to agree to disagree. With the state of the city I think this is tantamount (equivalent) to a crisis situation, and no time off should be taken this summer. It would seem there are some really critical decisions to be made and issues to be heard which do not have the luxury of waiting for a month.

    Hopefully the rest of your day goes a little better.

  13. As an example of the frighteningly slanted manner in which nearly all of your questions were answered, I propose adding this as question 101:

    Would you like to have an intelligent, collaborative, problem-solving councilmember in District 6, or would you prefer the current councilmember?

  14. Budget woes have Oakland mulling bankruptcy

    Chip Johnson
    SF Chronicle

    Tuesday, June 9, 2009  

    Even though city officials would prefer to avoid a public conversation, behind closed doors the Oakland City Council has discussed filing for bankruptcy protection in the midst of a $100 million budget deficit.

    Chip Johnson

    “We have asked the (bankruptcy) question because we wanted to know the impact,” said District 5 council member Ignacio De La Fuente. “In closed session, the question has been asked, and an answer was given.” He would not elaborate.

    “It’s a possibility,” he acknowledged. “Things are that bad.”

    Council President Jane Brunner was equally aloof. She ably acknowledged the city’s dire financial problem while managing to avoid the b-word altogether.

    “We’re going to try to avoid it, but am I going to say it would never happen? I can’t say that,” Brunner said.

    Consider the city’s cash position: Out of next year’s general fund of approximately $415 million, police costs are estimated at $212 million, fire protection service $103 million and $41 million in debt service payments. That leaves about $60 million to pay for everything else, from library services to recreation centers to public works.

    And that calculation doesn’t include $50 million more in deferred debt service in a budget proposal presented to the council last month by Mayor Ron Dellums.

    “We are in the worst recession since 1981,” said UC Berkeley Professor John Ellwood, an economist who worked in the Congressional Budget Office. “This recession is a bit different in that it’s being driven by the housing bubble, but as more and more people ask for property-tax reassessments, it’s going to leave a huge funding gap for cities,” Ellwood said.

    It’s already begun. Alameda County Assessor Ron Thomsen said tax assessments fell $13.6 billion in the fiscal year that will end June 30. “Our assessment roll will go down 2 percent, and we’ve never had a year-to-year drop ever in stats going back to 1958,” he said.

    Like a rock rolling downhill, those reduced property-tax revenues will be passed onto cities by a state government facing its own economic calamity created by a mammoth $24 billion budget shortfall.

    That will leave Oakland, which receives about 15 percent of the county’s annual property-tax revenues, in an even deeper hole. And with half of 2009 already in the rear view, the estimates on next year’s property tax revenues are even lower, Thomsen added.

    For the City Council, which is expected to present more budget options next week, it is the end of the line.

    It is faced with three choices: drastic pay reductions across the board, including police and fire services; massive layoffs; or bankruptcy.

    It has been a great run for municipal employees in Oakland and across the state, who have been the beneficiaries of one of the most generous civil service systems in the nation.

    Since the late 1940s, California municipal governments traditionally have employed fewer employees, who have been paid substantially more than other civil servants, Ellwood said.

    Add to the economic mix the union labor contracts in Oakland, which have provided city employees with high wages, good benefits and generous pension plans, and the problem is clear.

    Barring a substantial cash transfusion in federal aid, the Oakland Police Department will lose close to 200 officers next fall unless Dellums, who’s in Washington, D.C., this week, succeeds in securing more than $60 million over the next three years.

    A federal grant in any amount would help maintain the minimum requirement of 739 sworn officers.

    Any Oakland resident will gladly tell you that the possible loss of 200 police officers on the streets of this city is a bone-chilling thought.

    If Dellums was ever serious about his plan to bankroll the city with his clout on Capitol Hill and in foundation board rooms, now would be the time to call in all his markers.

    Because in the absence of a federal bailout package, De La Fuente said no formula for success would be achieved without making cuts to the Police and Fire departments.

    If the city adopts Dellums’ budget recommendation and lays off 140 police officers, it would dip below the minimum requirement of 739 officers and would trigger the loss of bond-measure funds that pays the salaries of an additional 63 police officers. Adding further woes to the budget, the police officers have negotiated a 4 percent pay raise scheduled to kick in July 1.

    Given the city’s economic limits, De La Fuente said the city can’t honor the pay raise and maintain the force at its current size.

    “We’re required to give them the (salary) increase, but it will require us to do other things within the budget to achieve the savings we need,” he said.

    Chip Johnson’s column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. E-mail him at [email protected].

  15. #13—do you seriously believe that the pay structure of the council is based upon no work in July?

    #14—you got that backwards.

    #15—you’re on the right track.  Most politicians call themselves public servants, when indeed they are just feeders at the public trough who would never make it in the private sector.

  16. Re#4 et al: July

    The job is the job.  The schedule for the job is meetings at City Hall August – June.  July there are no scheduled meeting at City Hall. 

    This is what the salary entails.  The councilmembers do plenty of constituent outreach during this time.  Many put in on their calendars, other don’t.

    Steve, it’s not July off, its July with no scheduled city meetings.  It that too hard to understand?  If they had meetings in July, their salary may be more.  But the schedule is the schedule and they are paid accordingly.  Kind of like being a teacher.  You are paid for the school year, though you get monthly checks.  Understood?

    And they will soon be setting an example by taking a pay cut, one which the brother and sisters in the unions should follow with a cut and TRUE wage freeze.

    All Unions should show compassion and embrace Mayor Reed’s June Budget Message so that their fellow workers will not loose their jobs. That they sacrifice a bit, so that their friend which they stand next to will be able to take home something for their family rather than an unemployment check in these unstable times.  Those with seniority need to look towards those who might loose their jobs, and help them out, rather than bump their position.

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