Petaluma City Council members Monday will consider abolishing five positions and reorganizing the police department's upper echelon in the latest budget-cutting effort.
After about 10 weeks of informal meetings and negotiations, City Manager John Brown and leaders of the 10 bargaining units representing the city's 300employees haven't agreed to any formal cutbacks.
That has left major budget questions unanswered almost two weeks into the new fiscal year. When it became obvious that a realistic budget wasn't going to be ready, City Council members passed an emergency $30 million spending plan to continue funding city operations.
In the meantime, department heads and even rank-and-file employees have been formulating plans to save money and jobs in the county's second-largest city.
Brown released his latest report on cost-saving measures last Thursday. It pares down an initial layoff list of a dozen positions to five and changes the job classifications of police captains and lieutenants to save a total of $450,000.
The report notes that unions have been reluctant to agree to concessions without firm numbers, which haven't been forthcoming, said Paul Gilman, a police detective, speaking as a leader of the City of Petaluma Employees consolidated group.
"We really haven't nailed down anything, which is kind of the amazing thing about this process," he said. "We are still very, very early on ... This is a worst-case scenario, and we're all trying to work together to avoid the worst case. Understanding that the money has to come from somewhere, we're trying to take part in that."
Brown said negotiations will continue.
In April, the council asked Brown to cut $4 million from general fund spending in the next year, an amount equaling about 12 percent of the $32 million budget.
That is intended to balance the city's budgets for the next four years and set aside $400,000 in a rainy day fund. Over the past four years, the city had drawn down the reserve fund to a low of about $5,000.
In his report, Brown said savings targets had been revised based on "changing conditions" and the savings of several employees' salaries through a variety of strategies. Twenty-two employees accepted an early retirement incentive, including seven whose salaries come from the general fund.
Downgrading two police captain positions to lieutenants would save $35,000 a year without layoffs, Brown said. That move takes into account several upper-management vacancies the department has, including that of Dan Fish, a captain who has served as interim chief for more than two years.
Other positions slated for layoff are two community service officers, an inspector and an office assistant in the public works department, and a police records assistant. Employees in those positions have "retreat rights" to return to other positions, so it isn't clear which employees could lose their jobs.
Two employees also came forth with ideas to transfer the duties of three employees scheduled to be laid off to other non-general fund departments. Those moves would save almost $200,000 from the general fund scalpel.
Brown said the cuts, savings and transfers identified so far still leave the city $450,000 short of the target savings for this year. If "uncorrected," he said, that would leave the 2014-15 budget $1.8 million in the red.
The council will discuss and possibly vote on the layoff numbers at its meeting tonight.
Brown said the sides are still negotiating other potential cuts.
"I would like to be further along than we are ... but, I guess we're making as much progress as we can," he said.
Contact Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 762-7297 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: