GILROY
The city council may ax two firefighters and two police department employees Monday night, which would bring the total number of layoffs at City Hall to 48.
None of the additional cuts at the police department include sworn officers, but they do include a multi-service officer who runs arrestees to jail in San Jose and also completes other time-consuming tasks that allow beat officers to remain on the streets. Officers have said keeping up their street presence is increasingly important as gang-related violence continues to climb, and City Administrator Tom Haglund hinted as much in a memo to council, which will meet is at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 7351 Rosanna St.
In his letter, he explained that Police Chief Denise Turner plans to reassign a sworn officer in the DARE program to the same shift as the multi-service officer.
“The additional officer assigned to the patrol team will be able to carry out the transfer without affecting the department’s current patrol deployment,” Haglund wrote, adding that the officer will “enhance” patrols when jail transportation is not necessary.
Councilman Dion Bracco said this latest round of cuts makes him nervous given Gilroy’s rising crime – the latest evidence of which was a gang-related shooting at Southgate Court Thursday night – but he added that he has faith in Chief Denise Turner’s judgment.
“I’m really worried we might gut the police department too much,” Bracco said Friday. “Time will tell, but she’s the professional. She knows what she needs to run her department, and I’m glad to see there are no officers proposed (for layoffs).”
To save their multi-service officer, though, the Police Officers Association plans to stick together. The body voted last month to forego volunteer specialty assignment beginning Jan. 1 “to save money and to keep these vitally needed positions.”
“Up until this (week), we were told that (multi-service officer) and Police Officer positions were not being cut during the first round of layoffs,” read an unsigned letter to POA members dated Dec. 11 that Councilman Dion Bracco provided to the Dispatch.
“It is unfortunate that this drastic measure has to be taken, but the city has left us no choice,” the letters reads. “If the council approves this budget Monday night, then we are asking our membership to follow through with your vote.”
The specialty assignments include the city’s hostage negotiating unit, major accident investigation team, crime scene investigators, arson investigators and the department’s mounted and bike units. Aside from the multi-service officer position, the council will consider making Crime Analyst Phyllis Ward a part-timer and laying off a public records technician. The additional cuts will save the department $252,033 this year and $425,119 next year, according to city figures.
Haglund will also continue to meet with the city’s four unions and to discuss cost-splitting ideas with Hollister and Morgan Hill, which has talked about a shared South County recreation program with Gilroy. Of the 44 approved layoffs, 16 were part-time positions earning an average of $27,789, and the rest were full-time employees earning an average of $119,377 a year, including benefits, according to city figures.
The rest of Haglund’s proposed cuts this time around come from the fire department and spending reductions, including $40,000 budgeted for the Visitor’s Bureau and $24,000 targeted for the Economic Development Corporation. The council considered these funding cuts last June but abandoned them at the last minute because critics argued the bureau and EDC make money for the city.
As for the fire department, the additional cuts reflect Sunrise Fire Station’s relatively slow business.
“Based on Sunrise’s significantly lower call volume, the unprecedented economic situation the City faces, the unknown extent of the rapidly deteriorating economic situation in California and nationally, and the expectation that housing and the population with the Sunrise service area will not increase over the course of the next few years, it is reasonable to conclude that Sunrise station’s staffing levels be adjusted back to a rescue operations station.”
Relegating the city’s third fire station to a medical-only response makes sense given the numbers, Haglund wrote. Last fiscal year, the Las Animas and Chestnut fire stations each responded to about 1,600 calls for services. Sunrise fielded 343 calls. Comparing annual personnel costs at each department compared to the number of calls shows that each call at Chestnut and Las Animas represents about $1,120 worth of staff time, whereas each call at Sunrise represents more than $4,000. As for the number of personnel at each station, the older ones require four persons for each of the three shifts as a result of union talks in 2001, but Sunrise only needs three per shift.
The council already approved laying off four of the department’s six relief firefighters who step up to the plate when regular employees go on vacation of fall ill, but Haglund has bumped that up to achieve the additional savings requested by the council.
“In viewing the fire department’s call for service data … it is reasonable to conclude that the call volume out of Sunrise does not fully justify the staffing of three firefighters per shift,” Haglund wrote.
This latest move will save the city $153,048 this fiscal year and $365,212 next year. Staff also expects the fire department to save $180,000 a year in overtime costs next year.
Haglund and Councilman Craig Gartman have also broached the idea of closing down the station completely, which would save the city $1.4 million. The council will discuss the idea – along with the layoffs – Monday, but Haglund wrote in his memo that “closure at this juncture is not recommended.”
All the proposed reduction achieve the council’s direction to save $500,000 this year and $1 million next year. The first round of layoffs – coupled with postponed infrastructure projects – will save the city $3.3 million this fiscal year and $6.7 million next year. If the council approves the latest cuts, officials expect this year’s deficit to total $2.2 million and expect next year’s general fund to be $1 million in the black.
But the city’s general fund reserve has been hemorrhaging money for a while. Shrinking tax receipts and sour investments have contributed, but the fund also insures nearly $32 million worth of infrastructure and public facility projects that were supposed to draw funds from fees that developers have stopped paying because they have stopped building. The rainy-day fund held $26 million a year ago, and without the latest proposed layoffs, staff expects the reserve to drop to $8.3 million by June 2009 and to negative $11.8 million a year later.
It will also take time to work through the politics of layoffs. Senior employees have the option of “bumping” subordinates who did not receive layoff notices. There are 271 full-time positions and 57 part-time positions at City Hall.
