“We are way beyond just cutting fat, we’re into cutting muscle in this budget,” City Manager Jim Starbird said. “These are tough decisions.”
The City Council, which must adopt a balanced budget each year before July 1, has been under pressure since May to reconcile flattening revenue sources with a continued rise in expenses.
On Tuesday, the council handed down its list of tentative cuts to the Police and Fire departments, which will be less than the 5% all other city departments will have to cut from their respective budgets.
The move to shed three firefighter positions and the Fire Department’s recruit academy, eliminate school resource officers at the city’s three middle schools and cut the police explorer program and Citizen Academy, among other cuts, combined to bring a $2.6-million impact to public safety.
The reduced firefighter staffing will mean three, instead of four, firefighters on the engine out of Fire Station 23, which services the Chevy Chase Canyon area, fire officials said.
The Glendale Police Department’s Public Safety Academy and television outreach show will also be slashed, and the Community Policing Partnerships program capped, in a move Chief Randy Adams warned would “slowly dismantle your Police Department.”
Operating hours at almost all of the city’s libraries will be reduced, in addition to cuts in other services, and the Chevy Chase Branch Library will be closed in order to meet the across-the-board mandate to cut 5%.
A customer service representative who handles call-ins to the Neighborhood Services Department, which enforces municipal codes, will also be reassigned after the City Council decided to eliminate the position.
