Council Cuts Nonprofit Spending 10 Percent, Despite Efforts to Slow the Cuts

A 4-3 Santa Cruz City Council vote on Tuesday cut funding to nonprofits by 10 percent after hours of debate.

Mayor Ryan Coonerty and Councilwoman Hilary Bryant stressed that cuts to social service agencies had to parallel the cuts made by employees who voluntarily took reductions to save jobs.

"It's going to be painful," said Bryant before the vote.

Coonerty took a hard line, saying that if money were to be added to social service agencies it would have to come from somewhere else.

"Eventually, it's going to mean layoffs," he said.

Vice-Mayor Don Lane presented a detailed plan to scale back cuts to only 3 percent and gradually soften the blow of losing a safety net for those who need it most. He argued for a $34,000 total cut, rather than the $113,00, which the majority favored. Some of it was in a column

"We are not Scotts Valley," said Katherine Beiers, voting with the minority. "We should be proud of who we are. It started years ago giving a couple of million dollars to nonprofits. That's who we are. That's what the city is all about."

She added that some people think that defunding homeless services, including food, showers and lockers, will make the homeless population leave the city.

"They're not going to go away," she said. "They just will go away from there (the shelter) hungry, dirty, carrying all their stuff."

A last ditch effort saved money for the Santa Cruz AIDS Project, which had already been cut from $12,000 to nothing because the organization had failed to get its paperwork in correctly on time. The council voted unanimously to keep its funding at $5,000. It also gave $1,000 to Vista, the program for the blind, which had asked for $781, but had initially been disqualified because new council regulations were only funding organizations that asked for $5,000 or more. The Council took a special vote to override the disqualification for those two charities.

Cuts have lowered the city's deficit in its $164 million budget from $8 million to $1.6 million and more cuts are possible by December.

The city has eliminated 100 jobs and has had 12 sets of budget cuts since 2001.

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