City prepares for cuts

CITY HALL — Plans for bridging a projected $8.1-million budget shortfall without further cuts to public services depend heavily on millions of dollars’ worth of concessions from the city’s four employee unions, officials said Tuesday.

About 40% of the projected deficit, or roughly $3 million, could be made up with salary and benefits concessions from the city employee unions, officials said, sparing public services from even deeper cuts.

The plan came Tuesday during the first of a series of budget meetings leading up to the beginning of the next fiscal year in July. It will be the third year in a row that the City Council will be forced to fill a significant budget gap in light of reduced building and property and sales tax revenues.

Department executives have already prepared lists that reflect cuts to the General Fund, which pays for basic public services like police and libraries, of 3% and 5%. But City Manager Jim Starbird said further department reductions would have a noticeable effect on civil service, which has already shouldered the loss of 100 positions in the past two years.

“We are to the point now where further cuts continue to cut to the bone,” Starbird said.

“The list of each department’s reductions reads position by position.”

Except for police, employee groups did not receive pay increases last year. City officials began meeting with the groups in closed session last week.

“We are calling on them again this year,” Starbird said. “That plays a very important role among the strategies we have for balancing the upcoming year’s budget.”

The most significant concession could come from the Glendale Police Assn., which last year declined to reopen its four-year contract despite City Council pressure to forgo two years of scheduled 6% cost-of-living increases.

More than $1 million in savings could be generated if the police union agreed to forgo this year’s pay raises, city officials said.

City officials could face a skeptical audience with the rank and file of the city’s largest employee bargaining group, the Glendale City Employee’s Assn., which must negotiate a new contract effective July 1. Last year, the organization didn’t approve its one-year contract until August, nearly a month after the group first voted down the agreement.

Still, Craig Hinckley, president of the union, said he hoped to work with city officials to avoid any layoffs.

“We certainly want to do our share to make sure we don’t lose employees and keep things in the positions where we can hire the right people,” he said.

Other strategies focus on finding alternative sources of revenue for the General Fund, most notably eliminating the transfer of any sales tax revenue to the city’s Capital Improvement Program fund.

The transfer of sales tax revenue to the General Fund would not affect current capital projects, but future proposals will likely suffer, officials said.

“The [Capital Improvement Program] is a mere shadow of its former self,” said Finance Director Bob Elliot.

“It will need additional funding in the future, that’s for sure.”