A Drop in the Budget: Supervisors Wrestle Over a $3,000 Item

What price symbolism? For the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, it’s about $3,000 in a $1.27-billion budget.

At a time when severe budget constraints confront the county with the prospect of millions of dollars of cuts in vital health services and other programs, the supervisors engaged in a spirited debate Wednesday over a plan to spend $3,000 for a television, a VCR and a facsimile machine for their county offices.

Though the proposed expenditure represented an infinitesimal .0002366% of the county’s budget, the supervisors--some of whom hoped to drive home the point that austerity begins at home--discussed it in more detail than they have the multimillion-dollar budgets of many county departments.

Symbolic Significance

Saying that the issue had symbolic significance beyond the dollars involved, Supervisor John MacDonald proposed that the board scrap the proposed video equipment purchase. With other county employees and the public facing potentially severe cutbacks, MacDonald argued, the $3,000 proposal made it appear that the supervisors were letting their own belts out a few notches when they are asking others to tighten theirs.

“We’ve asked other staffs to cut, (and) we should be willing to do the same,” MacDonald said.

Several supervisors said they agreed with MacDonald in principle but added they still wanted the TV, VCR and facsimile machine.

“Machines cost much less than people,” Supervisor Leon Williams said, arguing that the equipment would reduce staff time now spent delivering or picking up written material, as well as make it easier for the board to review instructional videos and other data.

‘Not a Luxury’

“In the day and age we live in, these things really are not a luxury,” Supervisor Susan Golding said. She acknowledged that there are televisions, video recorders and facsimile machines elsewhere in the County Administration Center but said the equipment has often been unavailable when she had needed it.

MacDonald, however, continued to press the issue, which led to a few testy comments among the board members.

If the video equipment would, indeed, enhance staff efficiency, MacDonald suggested to Golding, then perhaps she would like to reduce her staff hours. MacDonald was only joking, but the humor was lost on Golding.

“I’ll make a facetious comment, too,” Golding responded. “We could do without our Xerox machine.”

That comment, in turn, led Williams to reminisce about pre-photocopy machine days when it could take hours to make copies of documents by hand.

Unhappy With Situation

Displeased over being placed in a compromising position, Golding said she would simply buy a facsimile machine for her own office and drop the plan for one to be shared by all five supervisors.

“John, you’re going to have to use another machine,” Golding told MacDonald, half-jokingly.

With that, Golding requested a separate vote on the $2,000 facsimile machine. Williams and Supervisor George Bailey voted to buy the machine, but Golding joined with MacDonald and Brian Bilbray to defeat the proposal.

Though there was some confusion over the vote, MacDonald’s staff said later that the television and VCR, costing $500 each, apparently will tentatively remain in the budget.

“Oh, well, at least we got rid of one of the goodies,” MacDonald aide Nancy Allen said. “It was a small point, but one worth making.”