Delicate approach to cutting the budget

April 24, 2010

Budget cuts are serious stuff, but as Trent Rhorer, the head of the city's Human Services Agency, put it, this was definitely one of those "only in San Francisco" moments.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has ordered the agency to close a $12.6 million budget gap.

Part of the proposal considered this week at the Human Services Commission called for cutting $239,000 from the Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative, a pioneering transgender employment program. Another $200,000 would be cut from Edgewood Center for Children and Families, which treats severely disturbed children and supports relatives - often grandmothers - caring for kids who would otherwise find themselves in the foster care system or worse.

Advocates for both centers said the cuts would be crippling.

Supervisor Bevan Dufty said the transgender work placement program addresses "the biggest obstacle facing a transgender person" in the city.

Daniela Ogden, a spokeswoman for Edgewood, said the proposal would gut a program with a 90 percent success rate and cost the city more by forcing kids into the foster care system.

"We might as well reserve a place in jail for them," Ogden said.

Rhorer said he didn't have "a lot of options, given how much we've cut over the last two years."

Ultimately, the commission voted unanimously not to endorse cuts to any community benefit organizations, backing $4.6 million out of the suggested $5.6 million in reductions.

But not before one speaker had this uniquely San Franciscan line of the day, relayed by those in attendance: "In the end, it shouldn't come down to pitting the trannies against the grannies."

- John Coté

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/23/BAG71D2TKV.DTL#ixzz0mEvJWykY

|