City lays off 10 to balance budget

<p>To cut the remaining $1.1 million needed to balance its budget, City Hall will lay off 10 employees, cut out part-time work and freeze empty positions.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>The layoffs in the 2009-2010 fiscal year that begins July 1 come on top of 42 jobs eliminated or frozen in the past year, and will help the city reduce its general services budget by more than $11 million over the past 12 months, officials said.</p><p>The city’s $35 million general fund for the next year is about 10 percent lower than the current year, officials said.</p><p>City Manager John Brown said he is still talking with employee unions about having workers accept pay or benefit cuts in order to avoid layoffs, but “I haven’t had any indication that they are going to accept a 5 percent pay decrease.”</p><p>The 10 layoffs authorized by the council Monday include office workers, mechanics and parks maintenance staff on the city’s 300-member workforce. Police officers and firefighters aren’t being laid off, but three vacancies in the police department and four in the fire department won’t be filled.</p><p>“There’s a lot to hate about this budget,” Councilmember Mike Healy said. “None of us ran for office to lay people off, to freeze positions or to reduce services.”</p><p>The spending plan reduces the city’s $1.7 million in reserves to below $200,000 to shore up revenues, a move that some council members called “unsustainable.”</p><p>Brown said the city could choose additional cuts, such as laying off three police officers or even Brown himself, to immediately build up the reserves. Council members lamented the drawing down of the reserves, but said the city’s financial situation left little choice.</p><p>“It is scary thing, to take down the reserves to every last nickel,” Councilmember David Glass said. “You don’t ordinarily do that, but these aren’t ordinary times.”</p><p>In addition to the layoffs, the council agreed to cost-cutting measures previously discussed, including privatizing the operation of the swim center and consolidating the parks and public works departments’ maintenance staffs.</p><p>Part-time work in the police, finance and parks departments would also be eliminated, and the fire department would be allowed to staff one less firefighter per shift, the council decided.</p><p>“These are not fun decisions for anyone,” Mayor Pamela Torliatt said. “We’re doing what we can with what we have — it’s not much.”</p><p>Brown said he, too, is reluctant to reduce general-fund reserves, and offered a list of steps the city will explore in order to boost the reserves over the next year.</p><p>Ideas include contracting out the city’s information technology services to another agency, out-sourcing maintenance for its vehicle fleet and buildings and selling surplus city-owned property.</p><p>In a separate item, the council unanimously approved one proposal to raise money — a fee for ambulance service charged to non-residents when paramedics are dispatched to non-injury accidents.</p><p>Healy urged the council to move forward on long-planned shopping center projects that could increase revenue, noting that the developer of a project anchored by a home-improvement store has estimated that taxes could start flowing to the city next year if the store opens by October 2010.</p><p>Brown said that schedule “may be a little optimistic” because the developer, Merlone Geier, hasn’t completed its application to the city.</p><p>(Contact Corey Young at corey.young@arguscourier.com)</p>