By Tes Welborn, HANC Board

Money, Money Money! Tim Redmond called on the city to set up a 10 year Revenue Plan, as deficits will only be getting worse. The empty office buildings are going to ask for reassessments and lower property taxes, and that's about half of the city budget. Supervisor Connie Chan, heading the Supervisors' Budget Committee, tells us 2008 was worse! There are some hopeful signs at the state and federal levels of funds for more affordable housing. She'd like to see the proposed two-year budget in December, rather than May. Debbi Lerman, representing the Human Service Network, says nonprofits are struggling and they are often the first responders. They often struggle these days to find staff who will work for $17/hour. The mayor has spoken of cutting community and human services. Ms. Lerman proposes three rules for budget work: 1] don't cut life and death services, 2] don't cut items with other, dependent funding, and 3] don't cut services that will be hard to rebuild later. She noted that the city only funds the nonprofits 70%, of their budgets, even though they do much of the city's work, and only after the fact! So nonprofits have to spend time raising funds and struggling to have enough money to even start the year's work.