Office of Mayor Sam Liccardo
The Mayor recommends a series of critical one-time investments in programs that build on his commitment to expanding opportunity for many who struggle with the rising cost of living, including free summer learning youth programs, pre-apprenticeships construction trades programs for young adults, street-cleaning jobs for homeless residents, and child care for working parents.
He also advocates for substantial investments in public safety, including the return of “foot patrols” to restore “community policing” in some high-crime neighborhoods. The Budget Message also makes new investments to counter sexual assault, to prevent crime through community engagement, and traffic safety infrastructure. Finally, the Mayor calls for an “equity screen” to focus scarce resources for such services as blight eradication, pedestrian safety, parks rehabilitation, and crime prevention initiatives on the City’s most vulnerable neighborhoods.
“With this budget, we deepen our commitment to programs that expand opportunity and confront inequities in our City,” said Mayor Liccardo. “In struggling neighborhoods, we will double down on investments in educational programs for our youth, public safety, combating blight, and childcare for working parents.”
The following are some of the investments proposed in this year’s budget:
Among the new investments being proposed for this year’s budget:
• Education and Opportunity
-Summer Youth Learning: To build on the success of San José Learns-a program that provides free after school learning opportunities to K-3 students in struggling neighborhoods-the budget includes $500,000 in one-time funds to support and sustain summer learning opportunities with willing school district partners in high-need neighborhoods throughout San José.
-Construction Apprenticeship Pilot: To address the Bay Area’s construction labor shortage and provide pathways to a career with family-supporting wages, the Mayor allocates more than $100,000 to two pilot pre-apprenticeship programs to train 100 young residents in construction, providing them with direct entry to jobs and incomes.
• Housing and Homelessness
-SJ Bridge: formerly known as the Transitional Jobs Program, this partnership with the Downtown Streets Team and Goodwill employs homeless residents to clean litter and trash in dozens of citywide “hot spots.” The budget allocates $250,000 in one-time funding to support the expansion of the program to employ 100 homeless individuals and remove at least 1,000 tons of litter.
• Public Safety
-Foot Patrol & Community Policing: The City Manager is directed to allocate $750,000 to fund overtime pay to bring back foot patrols and restore this critical element of community policing to San Jose’s neighborhoods, long missing from our resource-constrained SJPD in the past decade.
-Traffic Calming and Pedestrian Safety: In response to requests from various districts, the budget allocates $1.6 million to various safety projects, and an additional $300,000 in one-time funds to provide traffic calming and pedestrian safety devices- ranging from flashing beacons in crosswalks to bulb-outs and speed humps-across ten locations citywide to be identified using an equity screen to ensure they address the most severe pedestrian and traffic safety risks.
-Sexual Assaults: Law Enforcement Training and Supportive Services- The budget allocates $750,000 in one-time funding to a reserve to be allocated upon Council approval of San José Police Chief Eddie Garcia’s plan to address the reported rise in sexual assault crimes.
• Blight and Beautification Efforts
-Blight Busters: The budget allocates $150,000 to pilot a program with a couple dozen trained neighborhood leaders who could assist backlogged code enforcement by reporting a list of frequent parking and code violations using an app or texting tool.
-Other key investments include tree planting, mural painting, trash cleanup, and park rehabilitation.
• Community Building & Empowerment
-Neighborhood Association Start-Up Impact Fund: To help start and strengthen neighborhood associations throughout the City, the budget allocates $50,000 to increase outreach efforts and support the formation of neighborhood associations, starting with three in District 7 and any neighborhoods identified through an equity screen.
-Project Hope: Six neighborhoods will join two others that have successfully utilized this program to prevent crime through community organizing, education, and empowerment.
You can find more details on the City’s FY 2019-2020 budget proposal by viewing the City Manager’s Proposed Operating Budget and the Mayor’s June Budget Message recommendations at sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?NID=6338.
The City Council will hold a final public hearing on the City Manager’s Proposed Operating Budget and the Mayor’s June Budget Message recommendations on the evening of Monday, June 10, and then vote on those measures at its June 11 meeting.
Photo Credit: Flickr/Adam Schultz – 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
Mayor Sam Liccardo has released his June Budget Message, outlining his final recommendations and changes to the Proposed Budget for the 2019-20 fiscal year
