Vince Mudd, who we’ve called the arbiter of San Diego’s fiscal future, released a report on the city’s budget deficit this morning from the 10-member task force he leads.
I haven’t waded through its 39 pages yet, but judging from history it’ll be important. The first nugget? He puts the city’s deficit for next year at $130 million, including money needed to fix San Diego’s deteriorating assets. That’s more than double what Mayor Jerry Sanders’ office has recognized as the official deficit.
Mudd’s group has released two reports before. The first, which leaked in November 2009, called for bankruptcy unless the city made a series of draconian cuts. The next one provided some cover to last summer’s Proposition D sales tax campaign by showing the the city could erase its deficit with new money and serious reform.
Mudd, a Poway resident who runs an office interiors business, is chairman of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce and has seen an increasing amount of political influence in recent years. Though a businessman and confidant of Sanders and Council President Tony Young, Mudd upset Sanders with his first report and didn’t endear himself to anti-Prop. D members of the business community with his second.
Please contact Liam Dillon directly at liam.dillon@voiceofsandiego.org and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/dillonliam.