S.F. faces $575.6 million budget deficit

[Mugu]

Heather Knight, sfgate.com

San Francisco's budget deficit for next year has grown to $575.6 million - equal to nearly half the city's discretionary spending account. It's a financial crisis Mayor Gavin Newsom called one of the worst the city has experienced since the 1930s.

Newsom will announce his plan for cutting up to $125 million from this year's $6.6 billion budget today, but gave few details about what it will include.

"This is nothing we've seen before," he told The Chronicle. "As difficult as these cuts will be, the real challenge is in the next three, four, six months."

Today's announcement is expected to include proposals to cancel police academy classes, lay off some high-paid attorneys and cut health services, including outpatient treatment programs for the mentally ill and drug addicted.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/09/BAK914KAK6.DTL">Complete article