Dig Deeper Texas

I actually attended part of the District 8 budget meeting. During the meeting, Diane Cibrian said that there were budget reductions based on shifting priorities and eliminating inefficiencies. You can find the proposed budget for the city at: Office of Management & Budget

You can also find a list of budget reductions which makes interesting reading. What’s interesting is the use or lack of use of numbers.

Two examples of use of numbers. Under City Auditor:

Eliminate 5 Audit Positions (As recommended by the Acting City Auditor)

The reduction will have no immediate impact to the number of audits and special projects conducted in FY 2007 since 15 positions have been vacant for over a year.

Projected savings $312,056

Nice use of numbers. The number of open positions and how long they have been opened. No explanation as to why the positions haven’t been filled but I’ll leave that to Roddy Stinson to figure out.

Another example is under the Department of Community Initiatives:

Eliminate Contractual In-Home Senior Assistance Program (Beginning in April 2007)

There are three other private sector programs that provide similar services. This program currently benefits 98 seniors at a cost of $4,236 annually per participant.

Project savings $207,542

Again, the report states how much it costs and how many people are receiving services. Of course, it would be even better if we knew how much it costs the other three private sector programs to provide services and if they even have space for the 98 that will lose services, but that’s not the point. The point is that report provides numbers if it sounds good.

While I have just started going through the report, the presence of numbers seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

Under Health we have:

Eliminate 1 Licensed Vocational Nurse

No change in service delivery is anticipated with the reduction of this vacant position as the responsibilities and workload will continue to be performed by current staff.

Projected savings $40,592

So why do we get to know that 15 auditor positions have been empty for a year but we don’t know how long this position has been empty? Who exactly are the current staff and what additional workload will they be receiving?

Then there is the library:

Redirect Computer Training Services to Community Initiatives Department

Demand for these course would be redirected to the Department of Community Initiatives that has and will continue to provide computer training classes to the citizens of San Antonio.

Projected savings $134,362

Why don’t we get to know what the demand is for these classes? I would really like to know the demand by location since the 20 plus libraries that had been providing the service includes locations outside Loop 410. There are only five community learning centers that are listed as providing computer literacy training and they are all located inside Loop 410.

Now I know that a lot of our readers find it difficult to believe that people would go to the libraries for books and references, but the fact of the matter is that computers are in high demand at the libraries. Go to any library when it opens and you will find all the public computers in use withing five minutes and plenty of people already on the waiting list.

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean there is an equivalent demand for computer training at these libraries but I’m pretty sure someone, somewhere knows how many computer classes have been taught at the various libraries along with the attendance numbers. So why not include the numbers?

Surely they wouldn’t recommend limiting access to shifting a program before looking at the numbers? For all I know, maybe the library staff is glad to get rid of the program. But I don’t know because for some reason, the numbers didn’t make it into the explanation. I wonder why?

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Filed under: City Budget, Diane Cibrian, San Antonio