Fiona Ma: As You Sow, So Shall You Reap

More than anything right now, San Francisco needs jobs! The City has lost 60,000 - 65,000 jobs from the November 2000 peak - a loss of nearly 1 in 10 jobs. The local unemployment rate now exceeds both the national and state unemployment rates. In addition, the structure of our current revenue system is skewed against providing new jobs. The victims are businesses that want to hire, the unemployed who would be hired and the city that would benefit from greater employment. We need to promote economic growth, create more jobs and stop driving firms away.

As a certified public accountant for more than 10 years, I understand first-hand that one of the burdens of both big and small businesses doing business in San Francisco is paying the city's payroll tax. Accordingly, on Sept. 25, SF Mayor Willie Brown and I convened the first meeting of a Revenue Advisory Panel to examine the city's revenue system and design a revenue system that is fair, simple and encourages economic growth.

The panel, comprised of a broad coalition from city departments, labor, small businesses, large businesses, social service agencies and nonprofits, has been meeting to lay out a comprehensive roadmap for reforming the revenue system. The panel will continue to meet over the next six months and recommendations from the panel will become part of a measure that I intend to put on the November 2004 ballot.

This panel is open to the public and I welcome your suggestions and comments. In addition, if you would like to attend future meetings, contact Jaynry Mak at (415) 554-7463 or jaynry.mak@sfgov.org.

Fiona Ma is a San Francisco supervisor representing District 4.