Santa Barbara Grapples with How to Cut Multimillion-Dollar Baby in Half

A friendly but pointed game of tug-of-war played out this Tuesday at the city’s Finance Committee, with members Eric Friedman, Meagan Harmon, and Randy Rowse grappling with how to spend a $14.6 million surplus in Santa Barbara’s budget. “It’s a good problem to have,” said Friedman.

The lion’s share, Friedman explained, came from vacant staff positions, both planned and unplanned. The city has struggled mightily with recruiting and retaining critical employees, Friedman said, and thus current staff has had to shoulder more work with fewer people. Therefore, he argued, a significant portion of the surplus should go toward raising salaries and making Santa Barbara a more competitive employer among other public agencies in the region. The rest of it ought to be divided between paying down the city’s unfunded pension liability and beefing up a newly created affordable housing trust.

Harmon countered with a proposal to allocate half of the $14.6 million to pensions — “It’s the wet blanket that hangs over every council meeting,” she said — and the other half to the housing trust. She liked the idea of raising salaries, she explained, but worried about allocating one-time money to what amounts to an ongoing cost. “I’m worried we’ll find ourselves in the same position a year from now,” she said. “I’m not sure it makes prudent sense.”