Police and fire officials outline budget cuts

By ERIC LINDBERG — May 27, 2009

During their first in-depth look at upcoming budgets for the police and fire departments yesterday evening, Santa Barbara city leaders faced down cuts that include fee increases coupled with the elimination of vacant positions.

Police officials outlined $1.56 million in budget adjustments, the largest dollar figure being cut by any city department, while fire officials described $908,000 in proposed cuts.

Despite the seemingly large figures, the two public safety departments are taking half the hit of other city departments, with 4.7 percent of their budgets being cut compared to nearly 10 percent in other areas.

“We’re feeling the pain all over and we’re going to work hard to come up with some alternative balancing strategies to make sure people don’t experience a loss of service that puts them in danger,” Councilmember Das Williams said.

POLICE DEPARTMENT

In running down his department’s proposed budget, Police Chief Cam Sanchez said the plan is to keep 140 sworn officers on duty, although some worst-case scenarios involve eliminating four vacant officer positions.

“The most critical area for us, and for any police department, is patrol,” he said.

Deputy Chief Frank Mannix echoed those sentiments, noting that if cuts to sworn personnel are necessary, they will be focused away from patrol officers.

The department currently has six vacancies in sworn positions due to attrition, and one anticipated retirement this year will bring staffing levels to 133 sworn officers. Mannix said there are plans to send seven applicants to the police academy later this year, about the same time the department will find out if a critical federal COPS grant necessary to keep staffing at 140 sworn positions has been secured.

If that grant isn’t received in full — the department has requested approximately $510,000 — officials would have to face cutting four positions. Doing so could result in eliminating the DARE program, moving two beat coordinators to patrol positions, and cutting the Police Activities League in half in order to keep patrol service strong, Mannix said.

“We’re going to prioritize keeping police officers in the field for service to the public and service to each other,” he said. “We don’t want to be so thin out there we can’t back each other up.”

In the proposals described yesterday, the deputy chief also outlined other cuts to the workforce, mainly focused on the civilian portion of the department. A vacant records specialist position is slated for elimination, along with three other positions (including the animal control supervisor and a records manager) that will become vacant after upcoming retirements.

Police officials plan to convert two empty sworn positions, a lieutenant and a sergeant, to officer positions for additional savings as well.

Along with personnel and line item cuts, Mannix said the department also plans to boost revenues by increased parking and dismissal fees, which have already been approved by the city council.

He proposed an increase in release fees for towed vehicles, from $60 to $160 to put the department in step with the regional average, thus raising an estimated $275,000. Those fee increases would increase revenues by $727,000, Mannix said.

While the budget proposals made yesterday evening are not set in stone, some in the audience urged the council to stay away from cutting police and fire departments altogether.

“There is a sacred cow and it is public safety,” Sgt. Charles McChesney, president of the Santa Barbara Police Officers Association. “…I recommend that you stay vegetarian. Stay away from the cow.”

FIRE DEPARTMENT

Interim City Fire Chief Andrew DiMizio told city leaders that in his approach to carving $908,000 from the fire department budget, he sought to maintain current emergency response services while minimizing impacts to non-emergency services.

With 87 percent of its expenditures in the salary and benefits column, however, city officials were hard-pressed to find ways to address the budget gap without taking a look at personnel.

“We have very little flexibility when it comes time to make cuts,” said Pete Ramsdell, the city’s administrative services manager.

A majority of the cost savings will come by way of eliminating an office specialist through retirement, keeping a relief captain position vacant, and eliminating two relief engineers and three relief captains through attrition.

Those relief positions are used on occasions that regular staff go on sick leave or are otherwise unable to work, city officials explained, adding that it will be cheaper to pay overtime to address those needs than keeping those positions filled.

However, DiMizio noted that doing so would have its impacts, particularly by losing qualified leaders with experience in managing emergencies and disasters.

Also on the chopping block is the department’s public education coordinator, although DiMizio is optimistic that grant funding from the Orfalea Foundation will come through to save that position.

Losing that employee would mean losing the popular CERT, or Community Emergency Response Training, program as well as fire and disaster training for targeted populations such as seniors and school-aged residents, he said.

In cutting the office specialist, DiMizio expects to see slower response to requests for records, a reduced ability to coordinate with other city departments and fewer updates to the department’s Web site.

Other reductions include reducing overtime for sick and injury leave, as well as several line-item cuts.

Increased revenues, however, are expected to soften the budget blow somewhat by way of a $300,000 boost in mutual aid. That is money paid to the department for responding to emergencies outside of its jurisdiction, and Ramsdell said that figure has continued to climb in recent years.

DiMizio said he is confident the overall budget proposal will allow the department to maintain its average emergency response time of three and a half minutes.

However, an additional $231,000 in contingency cuts — put together in case the economic situation turns out grimmer than expected — would undoubtedly have an effect on response times.

Cutting that kind of money would likely mean resorting to fire station brownouts, effectively closing down one station in the city in certain circumstances. That proposal didn’t sit well with city leaders.

“I will look everywhere, under every rock, in other departments before we do brownouts,” Councilmember Iya Falcone said.

BUDGET MEETING SCHEDULE

Going forward, city leaders will meet on Monday to discuss budgets for the airport, waterfront and finance departments, as well as the non-departmental budget. That discussion will be followed by deliberations during the regular council meetings on June 9 and June 16 — at 2 p.m. in council chambers.

The overall city budget is scheduled for adoption during the regular council meeting on June 23.

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MAKE THE PROPER CUTS!! : 5/28/2009

Why should the police and firefighters have to sacrifice a DIME?? the politicians always act like these are the only government employees (along with schoolteachers) and they do this every time to scare you into paying more taxes and not complaining about it! Lets cut some of the liberal welfare programs that got us into this mess! Lets cut the salaries of the high paid administrators and bureaucrats! Lets stop paying for services for illegal aliens!! Public safety should be BOLSTERED in this economy not cut!! This is simply punishment on the taxpayers for not supporting the tax propositions.

Realist

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overpaid : 6/3/2009

firefighters and police are two of the most overpaid professions. neither require any education at all. what a joke...i am sick and tired of all the propaganda acting like they are heroes for forcing people to evacuate their homes during a fire that could have been prevented immediately.....or for writing people up for rolling a stop sign. cut salaries for the un-educated workforce of police and fire.

the real realist

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