Executive Director's Column
Fall 2010

by Dick Bobertz, Executive Director
San Dieguito River Park

Funding Status of the San Dieguito River Park

Current Budget Status For the 20-year history of the San Dieguito River Park Joint Powers Authority operational funding has been provided by its five city members, San Diego, Del Mar, Solana Beach, Escondido, Poway and San Diego County. The members provided funding in proportion to population and jurisdictional area in the River Park. This agreement worked well for twenty year. Unfortunately, over the last several years, the economic downturn has resulted in severe budget problems for all governments, particularly the City of San Diego. As a result, the City made the decision to suspend its share of funding for the River Park in 2010.

Due to elimination of funding from the City of San Diego, the River Park’s largest contributing member ($254,000 annually or 36% of member agency contribution), the River Park has been forced to retrench. Consequently, the following actions were taken by the JPA Board on July 16, 2010:

Eliminate funding for the position of Executive Director.

Reduce funding for the Environmental Planner position from ¾ to ½ time.

Reduce Agency contributions to employee share of retirement costs by 50% and cap contributions to health care coverage (health care coverage costs are expected to increase by 5% beginning in 2011 – that cost will be charged to employees).

Reduce JPA Board and Citizen Advisory meetings by 50%.

Suspend contributions to the River Park Endowment Fund.

Additional cuts were made to the budget in the areas of volunteer support, uniform allowance, mileage reimbursement, professional training and legal support.

Even with these reductions it was still necessary to withdraw $37,000 from the River Park Endowment Fund to balance the FY 2010/2011 budget at the same level as last year.

The 36% reduction of funding from the City of San Diego combined with a FY 2009/2010 budget reduction of 14% means the River Park must now operate with 50% less funding from agency members than it was receiving 2 years ago.

Outlook The River Park is now operating at a subsistence level with the objective of maintaining what has been accomplished over the last 20 years with no capacity to make further progress toward completing the River Park. Even that objective is problematic since 3 of the 5 park rangers have been reassigned to the San Dieguito Lagoon Restoration and other mitigation properties that are funded by Southern California Edison or other mitigators. These rangers cannot be replaced leaving only 2 rangers to maintain the rest of the River Park.

Further progress toward completion of the River Park relies on finding a replacement for the City of San Diego Contribution or finding a way to have the City reinstate funding to the River Park.

Current City of San Diego leaders appear to be unconvinced that funding the San Dieguito River Park represents a reasonable investment of taxpayer revenue under existing budget conditions. In actuality, during the 20-year history of the River Park it has produced over $160 million of projects on an investment of $8 million of member agency contributions. Over 85% of that total represents projects that have been accomplished within the City of San Diego or for land purchases that protect the watersheds of City reservoirs.

Although all other potential revenue sources are being examined, none currently appear optimistic, making revision of the current City mindset toward the River Park necessary for a return to progress in completing one of the most visionary public projects in Southern California.

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