Budget puts police on chopping block

CITY HALL — After months of wrangling over a $9.7-million deficit, the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a balanced $808-million budget that includes across-the-board cuts of up to 7.5% that will likely mean pink slips for three sworn police officers.

Nearly all of the cuts came out of the $164.8-million general fund and included millions in savings from wage concessions, a hiring freeze, the elimination or downgrading of roughly 30 positions and a restructuring of the way the city pays for street and capital improvements.

The cost-cutting exercises have kept City Hall on edge for months, even as the City Council managed to avoid unpopular mandatory unpaid work furloughs or widespread layoffs. But despite Tuesday’s milestone, the new budget heads into the new fiscal year under the shadow of the ongoing state fiscal crisis, in which lawmakers continue to squabble over how to close a $24-billion deficit.

“We’re going to have to come back, I’m sure,” said Mayor Frank Quintero. “I’ll be absolutely stunned and surprised if we don’t lose money to Sacramento.”

Current proposals include provisions for raiding local government coffers, with the promise to repay the money in three years with interest. If it passes, Glendale would lose out on millions of dollars from its share of gas taxes and redevelopment funds, which in turn would force City Hall to reexamine the budget for even more cuts, city officials said.

Also a dominant factor Tuesday was the police union’s unwillingness to reopen its contracts for next fiscal year, when its members are due to get a 6% pay raise. The City Council had held out on making significant cuts to the Police Department in hopes that the union would agree to concede 1% or 2% from the raise, but the concession never came, forcing a restructure of community policing services and the elimination of seven positions. The move will likely translate to the layoff of three sworn officers.

Interim Police Chief Ron De Pompa’s revised plan for instituting a 5% reduction in funding included a proposal to cut three community policing officers and assign the remaining five to a regional area, where they will act as the single point of contact on public safety issues for residents. Each officer will be overseen by lieutenants who are currently division watch commanders.

“In essence you get a team approach to a specific area,” DePompa said.