Hollister
– The City Council decided on Monday that it will have a special
meeting in January to examine alternatives to the city manager’s
recommended budget cuts.
Hollister – The City Council decided on Monday that it will have a special meeting in January to examine alternatives to the city manager’s recommended budget cuts.
“We need to be creative,” said Mayor Brad Pike, who expressed particular concern about protecting public safety. “If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.”
Pike, who is also a captain with the Saratoga Fire Department, said he’s torn between his commitments to safety and to fiscal responsibility.
“The second (fire) alarms should not be for mutual aid outside the area and hoping that someone shows up,” Pike said. “I’m being pulled by both sides, and that’s the position I’m in.”
City Manager Clint Quilter’s recommendations for the budget cuts include a reduction in police staffing, the elimination of the fire department ladder truck/rescue company for one-third of the time and the closure of a number of city offices for one day a week, including City Hall.
Pike asked the heads of the city’s fire and police departments to discuss how the cuts will affect their departments. Fire Chief Bill Garringer emphasized that the ladder truck company is a crucial component of fire response; without it, firemen can’t cut holes in the roofs of burning buildings to release heat.
“If on that one shift there happens to be a fire, we’re not going in,” he said.
Garringer acknowledged that his department was consulted in the cuts. He said Quilter asked the department to decide what to eliminate if it had to reduce its budget by 5, 10, 15 or 20 percent, and that the recommended cuts match the 10 percent reduction.
“Even though we proposed it … I urge you not to do it and try to find another way,” Garringer said.
Like Garringer, Police Chief Jeff Miller said his department is already understaffed. A city of Hollister’s size, Miller said, should employ between 52 and 55 officers, not the 29 it will have after the cuts.
“Crimes versus persons will not be affected by these cuts,” Miller said, but police services, responses to property crimes and responses to animal control calls will be slowed substantially.
Miller added that requiring citizens to fill out reports for many property crimes will also affect crime statistics.
“You will see a drop in property crime statistics, but that will be illusory,” he said.
After the chiefs’ presentations, Quilter said he doesn’t disagree with anything they said.
“But (the police and fire department) are the preponderance of your general fund budget,” he said. “That’s an unfortunate fact of life.”
Without the cuts, the city faces a $2.7 million budget deficit for fiscal year 2006-2007, and future deficits as well. Councilwoman Monica Johnson emphasized that even with the cuts, the city will have to use some of its reserves to cover the deficit.
“I’m not going to agree to anything with a greater deficit than what we have right here,” Councilman Doug Emerson said.
Quilter said much of the city’s recent financial woes were caused by earlier city councils. Those councils, he said, increased the budget on the assumption that investments would continue earning a high rate of interest, which turned out to be false.
“We no longer have that revenue stream coming in,” Quilter said.
Quilter has previously said the city’s deficit should shrink over the next five years; he predicted that many cut or reduced services will return as the deficit disappears.
Anthony Ha covers local government for the Free Lance. Reach him at (831) 637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected].
