The public is invited to voice their concerns or praises with
more than $2 million in layoffs and service cuts to the senior
center, police coverage, teen programs, parks upkeep, front-counter
assistance and other reductions proposed in the city’s budget for
the fiscal year that begins in less than one month.
The public is invited to voice their concerns or praises with more than $2 million in layoffs and service cuts to the senior center, police coverage, teen programs, parks upkeep, front-counter assistance and other reductions proposed in the city’s budget for the fiscal year that begins in less than one month.
The public hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. tonight at a regularly scheduled city council meeting.
Council members are satisfied that the recommended budget, which eliminates 12.9 full-time jobs, is consistent with goals they set for the city last year, but they would still like to see how some of the cuts that have the most direct effect on Morgan Hill residents can be avoided.
“We should be dynamic and change according to where the needs are,” Councilman Larry Carr said. “There may be some places in the budget that meet our goals, but we may need to make some changes.” He added he is “very curious” to hear what the public has to say about the budget at tonight’s meeting.
High on the list of council concerns is a proposal to cut half the city’s share of funding for the Morgan Hill Senior Center at the Centennial Recreation Center. The recommended budget would cut $37,500 from senior programs, reducing the senior center’s daily hours of operation, and cutting about half the programs that seniors use to help them socialize and stay fit.
The proposal would reduce the number of visits to the center by local seniors from 44,000 to 26,000 per year, according to Recreation and Community Services Department director Steve Rymer. The senior center is administered by the Mt. Madonna YMCA with the help of city and county funding. This year, the city contributed $75,000 to the YMCA’s senior center operations. Volunteers spent about 10,000 hours last year helping to run the senior center as well.
At a council workshop Friday, where staff from all the city’s departments gave presentations on how they devised their respective budget proposals, Councilwoman Marilyn Librers noted the importance of programs such as those offered at the senior center.
“It’s proven that (senior citizens’) sociability is key to their long-term health,” Librers said.
She was also concerned about the impact of the cuts on the senior center staff, who work for the YMCA. The loss of half the city’s senior center funding would result in reductions for two full-time positions that run the facility and administer the seniors’ programs.
City staff was asked to consider possibilities to save the senior center, such as adding another $1 to monthly membership fees for the CRC and the city’s Aquatics Center. But charging the users of one service to subsidize those who take advantage of another service may not be allowed, City Manager Ed Tewes said.
Plus, Carr added Wednesday that the city should not cut from another service “just to add more to that area.”
Other significant cuts are expected in the police department. Although the city’s two public safety unions conceded contracted raises for the next three years, stalling the layoffs of two full-time officers for at least that long, the city still expects a reduction of police services starting July 1.
Proposed for layoffs are one police officer, one multi-service officer, and one part-time dispatcher, according to police Chief Bruce Cumming.
These losses will require reassigning two of the city’s three school resource officers to regular street patrol. “Next year we’ll have one school resource officer to cover the entire school district,” Cumming said. “But it’s necessary because I need police officers on patrol to answer calls.”
Patrol officers will spend more time answering calls from the schools during the day, he added.
Furthermore, eliminating a multi-service officer means that a sworn patrol officer will have to perform support duties such as transporting inmates to the county jail and processing impounded vehicles, Cumming said. And losing a part-time dispatcher will result in more overtime for the remaining dispatchers, and allow only one employee to answer 911 calls during slow shifts.
Using funds from the city’s redevelopment agency will help save some other police services next year, Cumming said. The department has proposed a new “community resource unit,” consisting of a detective, the school resource officer, two street crimes investigators and a part-time graffiti abatement officer. The officers will mostly focus their resources on the schools and the downtown redevelopment area.
The updated recommended budget also restored funding for the city’s animal control officer, due to a deal made with the Community Services Officers Association, the union which represents the officer. However, Tewes noted that position does not appear to be sustainable for the next five years, when projections indicate declining sales and property tax revenue and continued general fund reserve spending each year.
At the same time that police cuts are recommended, local officers’ workload continues to increase as the staffing level declines, Cumming noted. Next year’s budget has money for 36 full-time sworn officers, while three years ago the department had 39 sworn officers. Cumming warned that a state prison system program that releases more parolees convicted of non-violent crimes, with a reduction of state-funded supervision, will keep officers even busier.
Even though the offenders eligible for the release program are considered non-violent by the state, Cumming explained that many have acquired violent tendencies while in prison. “Around the state, you’re going to see some tragedies happen by the release of these so-called non-violent people,” Cumming said.
All the proposed cuts add up to “difficult” decisions, council members said.
“I wish we were in a better financial situation,” Councilwoman Marby Lee said Wednesday. “I wish we had started cutting earlier, but it is what it is.”
The council started making drastic service cuts last year when they adopted the current budget. If the council adopts the recommended budget in its current form, the city will have lost 15 percent of its total workforce, or about 29 positions since 2008 due to budget cuts.
Council members are satisfied, though, that the proposed budget adheres to goals they set in December 2009 – chief of which are to reduce the city’s labor costs, and to put a lower priority on services that do not generate revenue.
This year’s recommended budget represents a “new business model,” Tewes said at Friday’s workshop. The “old model,” he said, allowed the city to rely on steady growth and development to pay for services, and to invest in high-cost facilities.
However, as of next year, due to the nationwide financial crisis from which only a slow recovery can be expected, the city will have to look more closely at further reducing labor costs, requiring new businesses to pay for police services they require, targeting RDA investment to high-return properties, and reducing bureaucracy in the city’s growth control system.
“This budget sets the stage for some much bigger changes,” Tewes said.
Tonight’s council meeting will take place at City Hall council chambers, 17555 Peak Ave.
