San Diego is shrinking some city bureaucracy and laying off the city’s highest-paid worker to help close a $258 million deficit, but Mayor Todd Gloria still hasn’t made emergency cuts to services that some have called for.
Gloria announced Tuesday that seven city departments are being merged into other departments, saving the city $5.3 million by eliminating some high-level department head and deputy director positions.
The departments that will no longer be independent include Race and Equity, Cultural Affairs, Child and Youth Success and Sustainability and Mobility, which focuses on climate change and bicycle lanes.
Gloria announced he is also eliminating the chief operating officer position and laying off the man who has held that job since fall 2022, Eric Darga, the city’s highest-paid worker. His annual salary was $383,000 and his benefits cost another $70,000 a year.
But other than Dargan’s job, 29 of the other 30 positions eliminated by Gloria are vacant. That means eliminating them provides no savings in the ongoing fiscal year, with the savings only coming in the upcoming fiscal year when those positions had been projected to be filled.
Gloria appears to be delaying any proposals for service cuts, which many expect to include shorter hours at libraries and recreation centers, until he unveils his proposed budget for the new fiscal year in April.
That runs counter to lobbying from the City Council and city labor leaders, who have urged the mayor to make emergency cuts as soon as possible to potentially soften the deep cuts expected in the new fiscal year.
Gloria defended his approach Wednesday, contending his management team is thoroughly studying the city’s entire operation before proposing cuts.
“This is just the start,” Gloria said. “There’s a lot more work to be done.”
Gloria said when the mother lode of cuts finally gets proposed, he suspects the reaction will be “fairly emotional.”
The city’s largest labor union, the Municipal Employees Association, praised the mayor’s announcement.
“Mayor Gloria deserves credit for shaking things up to meet the moment of the city’s significant budget and operational challenges,” said Mike Zucchet, the union’s general manager. “We look forward to continuing to work with the mayor and his team to ensure city services are aligned with available resources and priorities.”
Gloria conceded that the $5.3 million in savings won’t make much of a dent in the $258 million deficit projected for the new fiscal year.
But he noted that a plan to begin charging single-family homes for trash pickup in July is projected to shrink that by $71 million.
And the city could get another $30 million from an expected court ruling on a ballot measure that would provide the city money for homeless services and roads.
In addition, the city recently doubled parking meter rates and plans to sharply increase a wide range of city fees starting as early as April. Those moves are projected to generate more than $40 million a year.
If all those moves come together as planned, that would leave a deficit of roughly $100 million.
Gloria said he’d like to shield from cuts four priorities: homeless services, infrastructure, public safety and housing initiatives.
Gloria defended 25% pay raises that most city employees received in 2023, which many critics blame for the large deficits San Diego is facing.
“I think that’s appropriate,” Gloria said of the raises, which kick in incrementally over three years. “We’re not hemorrhaging talent like we have previously. We are paying wages and providing benefits to attract high-quality talent to come here and serve the people of this city.”
The mayor also defended the decision to fold the Race and Equity Department, which the city created in 2020 after outcry following the murder of George Floyd, into the city’s Personnel Department.
“The incredible work accomplished by the Department of Race and Equity since its inception has laid a strong foundation that I’m extremely proud of,” the mayor said.
He said the other mergers don’t mean the city is giving up on the missions of those departments, just that the work is being reorganized.
“None of this is a signal of retreat from these issues or these priorities,” he said.
Child and Youth Success is merging into the Library Department, Cultural Affairs is merging into Economic Development and Sustainability and Mobility will be chopped up and merged into three other departments.
Additional mergers include the mayor’s office taking over Government Affairs, Boards and Commissions and the office of the chief operating officer. In addition to Dargan, a program manager in that department was laid off.
Gloria declined to praise or even evaluate Dargan’s performance. He said only that “Eric Dargan is a good man — I’ve enjoyed serving with him.”
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