1:00am | Long Beach City manager Pat West unveiled the first version of his budget proposal for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2011, dealing with an $18.5 million deficit by reducing or cutting some Police and Fire Department services, reducing or cutting funding for the Arts Council and performances such as the Independence Day fireworks show, and attempting to negotiate new labor contracts with City employees.
The proposal puts pressure on labor unions to renegotiate, noting that $11.3 million of the $18.5 million deficit is “attributable to increases in negotiated labor contracts.” Unless labor contracts are renegotiated, the budget proposal warns, the City will have to eliminate 44 Police patrol officer positions and one Fire Department ambulance, while instituting rolling Fire Department brownouts and cutting hours at libraries, parks and teen centers.
“Due to the status of the economy, the City must now restructure government, cut additional administrative support costs, search for more revenue, eliminate or reduce additional services, and make other moves to ensure its long-term financial health,” reads the report.
The report includes cuts that are being proposed whether labor contracts are renegotiated or not. They are listed below as included in the report:
- Reduced translator and interpreter services for City Council meetings
- Changes in staffing at two fire stations, keeping both stations open, but with different or reduced resources
- Reduced availability of Family Learning Centers at neighborhood libraries
- Reduced hours at community swimming pools
- Contracting with the private sector for services such as crossing guards, maintenance of City buildings, and City Hall security
- Reducing the size of some specialized Police Department units
- Reduced staffing in Development Services to reflect a reduction in building activity
- Fewer motorcycle officers dedicated to traffic enforcement
- Less funding for the Arts Council and street banners promoting the City
- A restructuring of the Municipal Band to maintain music events in the park under a more cost-effective model
- Eliminating City neighborhood block party traffic control
- Elimination of City funding for parades and special events, including Daisy Lane, Martin Luther King Jr. and Veterans Day parades. These events would have to become self-supporting.
- Reduction in Fire Marine Safety officers on the waterways
- Reduced weekday lifeguard staffing for West and East beach response units and Colorado Lagoon. Weekend staffing would remain unchanged.
- Elimination of the 4th of July Fireworks show in Queensway Bay
Mayor Bob Foster included his recommendations to the proposal as well, agreeing with the budget proposal that pension reform is needed for the City to survive financially. The Mayor calls for contractually obligated employee raises be applied to their PERS pension accounts, and for salary increases be frozen until 2014.
“Public safety pension costs, if un-addressed by reform, will rise from 26.6% to over 45% of the City’s police and fire payroll costs by 2014. No organization, including this City, could sustain these cost increases,“ Mayor Foster’s recommendation states.
“It is neither right nor fair to make public employees the scapegoats but the current benefits are generous and the numbers are very clear: these pensions are not sustainable.”
Foster also called for offering “less generous benefits for new employees.” With employee pension reform and a focus on working with local employment groups to improve the Long Beach unemployment rate, Mayor Foster predicted steady improvement that will lead to a sound budget in Fiscal Year 2015.
The City Council has until September 15 to adopt the Proposed Budget. Mayor Foster will then have five days to exercise his line-item veto and return the budget to the City Council with any additional service reduction recommendations. The Council must then veto or adopt the budget by September 30. Fiscal Year 2011 begins on October 1.
More to come.
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