During the past decade, city government has added a greater percentage of new managers than frontline services workers, such as gardeners, meter collectors and 911 operators, according to a Controller’s Office report.

“We have fattened up the highest levels,” Supervisor Chris Daly said during Monday’s Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee meeting. “We have a responsibility to start changing this back in the other direction.”

The budget committee of the Board of Supervisors is currently reviewing the $6.5 billion financial plan for next fiscal year recently submitted by Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is responsible for balancing San Francisco’s budget. Supervisors have been critical of some of the Mayor’s budget decisions which have included layoffs and cuts to health services.

Newsom came into the Mayor’s Office in 2004. Since 1999, there has been a 45 percent increase at City Hall in the number of managers represented by the Municipal Executive Association. In comparison, there has been a 7 percent increase in workers represented by chapters of the Service Employees International Union, which represents such nonmanagement employees as health workers.

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Newsom’s spokesman Nathan Ballard said that the supervisors “didn’t take into consideration the other factors that led to the MEA being a larger representative class,” including the reclassification of some city positions.

jsabatini@sfexaminer.com