Newsom Plays Politics With the Health Departments Budget

But the Mayors proposed budget includes $6.9 million in cuts to the Health Department, and eliminates or reduces funding for 17 non-profits who provide services for low-income clients. It would also outsource emergency and inpatient psychiatric services and close down the Workers Comp Clinic at S.F. General Hospital.

These cuts barely represent more than one tenth of one percent of a six billion dollar budget. Everyone expects that the Board of Supervisors will restore these cuts after hearing public testimony on June 19th. But it will also force non-profits to spend time at City Hall fighting to save their jobs when they could be using that time to provide vital services. Its a dog-and-pony show that has happened before, and it keeps the Supervisors busy listening to hours of public comment when they could be tackling other parts of the budget. Fortunately, Chris Daly and Tom Ammiano have already taken the pro-active step to restore some of these cuts.

Politicos whove been around long enough may remember the late Eric Allen Bass (a.k.a. Joe Fire), the black gay Rebublican blogger who worked on Newsoms mayoral campaign and wrote about San Francisco politics. I almost never agreed with what he had to say, but in June 2004 at the peak of budget season at City Hall he wrote an extremely cogent analysis that could be written today:

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