Hermosa Beach City Council members pondered their thinly staffed police and fire departments, and looked at outsourcing parking and animal enforcement and management of the Hermosa Playhouse, as they struggle to put together a budget for another lean year.
The prospective budget presented to the council on Thursday calls for freezing 14 vacant employee positions and, in a silver lining for motorists, creating 40 new parking spaces by eliminating U-turns at a number of intersections along Hermosa Avenue. The budget, which covers the upcoming fiscal year, is scheduled for adoption June 8.
Mayor Michael DiVirgilio suggested that the council begin to fill five Police Department positions that have been vacant since July 2009, perhaps asking city employees to take pay cuts as their contracts are negotiated.
DiVirgilio said employees could be asked to accept pay cuts between 2 and 4 percent, adding, “I realize that is a hardship.”
DiVirgilio also pointed to other ways police positions could be funded, such as city payroll savings that will occur if some senior municipal employees take early retirement packages that have been offered. City management estimates that about 10 employees might take the packages.
DiVirgilio’s colleagues expressed concern about the vacant police positions as well, but offered differing views on how and when they might be filled.
Councilman Pete Tucker said he was also concerned about the Fire Department’s staffing level, which might drop from six firefighters to five firefighters per shift with the new budget.
“We went through that last year and decided no, we’re going to keep it at the six,” Tucker pointed out. “…We still have to decide whether we want to go with six-man or five-man fire shifts.”
Councilman Jeff Duclos cited a Rand Corporation study that tied a community’s public safety to its property values, and said that should weigh into the discussion.
Hiring more public safety employees “may be a cost, but it is also an investment,” he said.
Tucker, along with councilmen Kit Bobko and Howard Fishman, suggested wait-and-see approaches to the police officer positions.
Officials will have to approve a budget before they know how much savings they will see from early retirements, said Fishman, adding that he does not want to “rush in like a bull in a China shop.”
Bobko said he does not want to approve any new hires until a “two-tiered” retirement system can be put in place, which would save money by offering new hires smaller pensions than existing employees.
Police Chief Greg Savelli called the Police Department’s staffing level “a dangerous situation that we do need to watch,” but also pledged to make do without new hires if need be. He said he keeps in contact with prospective new officers “so when the time is right, and there is money, we have people in a pool who can be hired.”
Some council members said they might reconsider adding employees to the payroll in October, when they know how much they will save from the early retirement offers.
Fire Chief David Lantzer told the council that reducing his level of staffing to five firefighters per shift – to save $33,000 a year in overtime pay – would have little significant effect on medical aid calls, but might force the department into less aggressive methods to fight fires in buildings.
“It may limit some things we do, and that is something we would have to look at,” he said.
With fewer firefighters on the scene initially, getting them inside a burning building without endangering their lives would be more problematic, Lantzer said.
“We might not be as aggressive,” he said.
The department would arrive with an engineer to manage the water supply, a captain as an incident commander, and three firefighters. The Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach departments respond to Hermosa fires as well, and Manhattan provides a battalion chief who can oversee the efforts.
Fishman, a retired risk manager for the City of Manhattan Beach, expressed reservations about the five-firefighter plan, as did Duclos.
Bobko suggested discussing the outsourcing of parking and animal enforcement, which is performed by seven fulltime employees with benefits and pensions.
“I think we need to outsource as much as possible to reduce the legacy costs,” Bobko said. “…There’s going to be a sea change in government next year.”
Savelli advised that private parking enforcement officers would “write a lot more tickets” in a “more deliberate, aggressive attempt to make money.”
Savelli said the city parking officers also provide services such as aiding in searches for missing children, and Fishman said the officers help provide traffic control on the scene of accidents and other incidents.
Tucker expressed reservations about outsourcing the positions.
“I think we need to be cautious if we’re going down that road, because we’re hurting the chief,” he said. “They do a lot of things.”
Council members also discussed the possibility of outsourcing or eliminating special events such as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Pier Plaza New Year’s Eve celebration.
The prospective $24.5 million operating budget was balanced with about $2.4 million in spending cuts and revenue increases. The largest savings is $1.6 million in salary and benefits from freezing 14 vacant employee positions, including five in the 39-member Police Department.
“Revenue growth in the general fund is flat for the second year in a row, with growth of less than 1 percent,” wrote Finance Director Viki Copeland in a report to the council.
“While there seems to be some sentiment that the economy will begin to pick up slightly in the beginning of 2011 and by the middle of 2011 will grow at more normal levels, there is little sign of improvement in the local economy,” she wrote, citing a March forecast by economists at UCLA.
Among the city’s costs, officials estimate spending $725,000 to continue fighting a long-running, $700 million breach-of-contract lawsuit by Macpherson Oil Company.
If the preliminary budget is approved, the city will maintain a rainy day fund of $3.5 million, about 14 percent of the operating budget. The city’s goal for the fund is 15 percent of the operating budget, Copeland wrote. ER
