Even as executives with the city of Glendale took the knives to their proposed budgets, they did so while trying to maintain the “relatively high level of services the community has come to expect,” Starbird said.
Still, with the search on to find the $10-million bridge, difficult decisions had to be made, he said.
“Every program has a constituency, and everyone will feel the effect of the reductions,” Starbird said.
The Community Development & Housing Department may have to layoff a customer service worker after last year cutting two code enforcers, Director Madalyn Blake said.
Glendale Police Department officials said a 5% reduction in the department would cut available overtime hours that officers use to staff many of the city’s popular community service programs.
Community Policing Partnerships, or COPPS, would have to be shut down, as would the popular youth Explorer program, Assistant Chief Ron DePompa said.
Six firefighter positions would also be shed from the Fire Department, including the public information officer and a fire captain position, Fire Chief Harold Scoggins told the City Council.
These positions would be eliminated by shifting people around and not filling empty posts, and would also eliminate the need to hold an academy for recruits next year and force fire stations 23 and 29 — where the cuts would be felt the most — to “change the way they operate and the way they do business,” Scoggins said.
That change would essentially result in the three-person per engine staffing model that some people in the community have promoted as a money-saver, but that fire officials have dismissed as unsafe.
