San Diego voters might be asked this November to give the City Council more control over budget cuts and to set minimum funding levels for oversight agencies like the city auditor and Ethics Commission.
A ballot measure proposed by Councilmember Kent Lee would make those changes and also revive the city’s chief operating officer position after the mayor eliminated it last year.
The proposal is among several possible November ballot measures the council’s Rules Committee will discuss Wednesday, including a campaign finance reform measure and a measure that would lock in free parking at city beaches and bays.
Lee said the goal of his measure, which would reduce the mayor’s power over budgeting and personnel, is boosting accountability and transparency at City Hall.
San Diego has had a “strong mayor” form of government for two decades, and council members often complain the mayor has too much power under that model.
Before the switch, the mayor held an advisory role similar to council members, and a hired city manager ran the city’s day-to-day operations and proposed a budget each year. Now the mayor runs operations and proposes a budget.
“This really starts with the fact that it’s been 20 years — it’s time to take a look,” Lee said Monday morning by phone.
Lee said the changes, which would amend the city charter, don’t specifically reflect frustration with Mayor Todd Gloria.
“This isn’t about any one mayor,” Lee said. “We will have a new mayor in 2028 that these changes would affect.”
But it’s notable that the proposal comes amid the city’s most significant budget crisis in more than a decade. The city is facing a projected deficit for the next fiscal year of more than $100 million and has limited reserves.
A key element of Lee’s proposal would give the council the power to propose budget cuts during a fiscal year that is still ongoing — a power that only the mayor now has.
During negotiations over a new annual budget for an upcoming fiscal year, the council has the power to propose cuts and changes. But the council can’t propose mid-year cuts.
Lee said it could make sense to proactively close the gaping deficit for the next fiscal year by making some mid-year cuts to the ongoing budget.
“The council doesn’t really have any mechanism to make a push,” Lee said.
His proposal would also seek to prevent funding cuts to oversight agencies, which Lee suggests should include the Ethics Commission, city clerk, auditor, independent budget analyst and Commission on Police Practices.
Lee noted that those agencies have relatively small budgets compared to other city departments. He said his goal is to boost their stability and effectiveness, which would be threatened by cuts.
“They don’t have massive budgets, but their oversight roles are huge,” Lee said.
Lee said he sees two options: Make current funding levels a minimum level that would grow in proportion to the overall budget, or prohibit cuts unless a six-member supermajority of the nine-member council approves.
“It makes sense to define a floor,” said Lee, noting that Los Angeles and San Francisco have set percentage funding floors for their city auditors.
The proposal to revive the chief operating officer position comes a year after Gloria removed Eric Dargan from the job and took over the position’s duties.
In the approved budget for the ongoing fiscal year, the council initially funded the position and ordered Gloria to fill it. But the council eventually agreed to remove that funding as part of a final compromise after Gloria used his line-item veto.
Lee said the position, which oversees all of the city’s day-to-day operations, is particularly crucial during a budget crisis.
The Rules Committee, which is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. Wednesday, will also discuss Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera’s proposal to strengthen the city’s campaign finance rules.
“When wealthy interests can spend without meaningful disclosure — through shadow campaigns, pass-through entities, and independent expenditure committees that obscure their true funders — ordinary San Diegans are left without the information they need to hold lobbyists, candidates and elected officials accountable,” he said in a staff report.
No details about his proposed ballot measure were available Monday.
In addition, Councilmember Raul Campillo is proposing a ballot measure that would preserve free parking at all of the city’s bays and beaches.
The proposal comes weeks after council support dropped sharply for paid parking or entry frees at beaches and bays, primarily because the rollout of paid parking at Balboa Park had been chaotic and heavily criticized.
Other possible ballot measures on Wednesday’s agenda include proposals to reclassify online travel agencies as hotel operators for taxation reasons and proposals to repeal paid parking in Balboa Park and a proposed traffic-congestion impact tax.
The November ballot might also include two citizen’s initiatives, one that would repeal the city’s new trash fee for single-family homes and another that would repeal new parking fees.